Final Cut Express 4: Visual QuickStart Guide [Paperback]

Lisa Brenneis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321544323 | ISBN-13: 978-0321544322 | Publication Date: March 28, 2008 | Edition: 1

Here to ensure that users start taking advantage of Final Cut Express 4's powerful editing capabilities immediately is a thoroughly updated task-based guide to the program from best-selling author and digital video expert Lisa Brenneis. Users who are eager to make effective, compelling videos but don't want to invest heavily in training or equipment will welcome Lisa's simple step-by-step instructions, strong visual approach, and sound professional advice. In short order, they'll find themselves editing video; applying special effects and transitions; mastering the program's compositing, titling, and audio tools; and outputting their finished work. Readers will also learn about all that's new in this major upgrade: importing iMovie 08 projects, open format Timeline, built-in AVCHD and more.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1 edition (March 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321544323
• ISBN-13: 978-0321544322
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,051 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #29 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Final Cut

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The kindest Cut of all, December 29, 2009

By 

G. W. Marsh "G.W." (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Final Cut Express 4: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

I neglected to read the reviews on this page before I purchased the book, and had I done so, would not have added this book to my library. That would have been a great loss.

I bought the software for Final Cut Express 4 three months ago and have struggled with a learning curve that seemed at times vertical. Particularly annoying was that the highly recommended book I bought at the time included a DVD which I at first thought was a good idea, but came quickly to realize that chopping about in someone's deadly dull movie is no fun at all. I dreaded doing the lessons. Worse, they tied me to the computer, for without the computer the book went from irritating to useless.

Recently I stumbled across Lisa Brenneis's book. Brilliant! Fun to read lucid prose written in an engaging and conversational style and sans the labored jokes other series include; an intuitive index which really enables you to find things (the above mentioned h.r. book has a thwarting index) and a useful Table of Contents. Every page of 600 is informative. Each time I open the book I discover something new. The first paragraph on something tells you what you need to know, its basic function, and then below it, as your eye drops down, additional information and tips. Opening this book is like FCE itself, an ancient carved box; lift the lid, and inside are hundreds of strange and wondrous tools. You lift them up, turn them over, glance at Lisa's book and light dawns - ah, yes, how marvelous. But then, you turn the tool another way, puzzled, until Lisa tells you of further uses, applications of which you had not dreamed.

Terrific, too, is that you do not have to be at your computer to read this book and enjoy it. Wait for your spouse to get his or her hair done, or shop for truffles or something, and you can find a chair, open the pages, read with delight and stick in a bookmark to use the information as soon as you get home. Try that with the other books out there.

To anyone who wants to learn FCE4 from scratch, I would suggest watching the free Izzy videos on FCE4 available online; ditto for the free LiveType tutorials; thus armed, open this book. Lisa is a born teacher and writer and I cannot recommend her book too highly. I wish I had discovered it earlier. The prose is crystal clear, the book is of tremendous value, and the negative reviews I see on this page are incomprehensible to me. It is unquestionably the best book on software I own and the only one I can say I enjoy reading.

G. W. Marsh

Final Cut Express 4: Visual QuickStart Guide

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for beginners, but so good for advanced, May 5, 2009

By 

supa-cutter of cali "sidewalk editor" (West Hollywood, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Final Cut Express 4: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

I'm fairly experienced with Final Cut, but every once in a while i get stymied by some odd event or set of procedures. That's when i reach for this reference manual. The book isn't really designed like a over-arcing tutorial guide, like a step-by-step from beginning to end, and maybe that's what some reviewers desire. It does have step-by-step guides, but for very specific events. It covers the basics, but for beginners, the entire final cut suite of products can be like hitting a brick wall - you have to be patient and keep editing, and the wisdom will eventually come. It's not easy, but i found this guide helps me.

And reviewers should really lay off the personal attacks on authors, that's just ugly.
...just you wait until Zombie Charles Dickens comes knocking on your door...

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a How to Book, July 11, 2008

By 

OQ "OQ" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Final Cut Express 4: Visual QuickStart Guide (Paperback)

This is not a "How to" book. It explains the functions but not the procedures, It does not tie anything together and gives no examples at all on how to do anything with Final cut express, It just explains what the particular function does. The photo's are terrible. Unfortunetly it was the only book avaliable on Final Cut Express at the Big Block type bookstores. I knew from the get go I was not going to enjoy this book, The software PDF manual is way better to bad that's not in print..