Apple Final Cut Studio Instruction Manual

Final Cut Studio

Workflows

Apple Computer, Inc.

The Apple logo is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Use of the “keyboard” Apple logo (Option-Shift-K) for commercial purposes without the prior written consent of Apple may constitute trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this manual is accurate. Apple Computer, Inc., is not responsible for printing or clerical errors.

Apple Computer, Inc. 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014-2084 408-996-1010 www.apple.com

AppleScript, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut, Final Cut Pro, Logic, QuickTime, Shake, and Soundtrack are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Cinema Tools, Finder, and LiveType are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.

Adobe and Photoshop are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Dolby is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories.

Other company and product names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective companies. Mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation. Apple assumes no responsibility with regard to the performance or use of these products.

5 An Introduction to the Apple Post-Production Applications 6

Overview of the Apple Post-Production Applications

Using This Document

Sample Final Cut Studio Workflow

Editing the Movie

Encoding the Movie

Authoring the DVD

17 Using Apple Applications for Your Final Cut Pro Projects 17

Using Soundtrack Pro With Final Cut Pro

Working With a Single Clip From Final Cut Pro

Working With Multiple Audio Tracks From Final Cut Pro

Exporting a Clip or Sequence From Final Cut Pro to Soundtrack Pro

Using Motion With Final Cut Pro

Exporting a Clip or Sequence From Final Cut Pro to Motion

Importing a Motion Project Into a Final Cut Pro Project

Making Changes to a Motion Project Already in Final Cut Pro

Using Compressor With Final Cut Pro

Exporting Your Movie Using Compressor

Converting a Video Clip to a Different Video Standard

Using LiveType With Final Cut Pro

Importing a LiveType Project Into a Final Cut Pro Project

Making Changes to a LiveType Project Already in Final Cut Pro

Exporting a Partial Sequence for LiveType

Using Shake With Final Cut Pro

How Imported Clips Are Arranged in Shake

Sending Clips From Final Cut Pro

Sending Media Back to Final Cut Pro

Using Logic Pro With Final Cut Pro

Importing Final Cut Pro XML Files Into Logic Pro

Exporting a Final Cut Pro XML File From Logic Pro

37 Using Apple Applications for Your DVD Studio Pro Projects 37

Turning Your Final Cut Pro Project Into a DVD

Importing Your Final Cut Pro Project Into DVD Studio Pro

Making an HD-Based DVD From Your Final Cut Pro Project

Using Motion in Your DVD Studio Pro Project

Importing a Motion Project for a Motion Menu

Making Changes to a Motion Project Already in DVD Studio Pro

Creating and Importing a Motion Project as an Alpha Transition

Using Soundtrack Pro in Your DVD Studio Pro Project

Saving Soundtrack Pro Projects for DVD Studio Pro

Using Soundtrack Pro With Motion Projects

Exporting AIFF Audio From Soundtrack Pro

Exporting From Soundtrack Pro Using Compressor

Using Compressor in Your DVD Studio Pro Project

About the Compressor Workflow Methods

Why Make AC-3 Files?

Making AC-3 Files With Compressor

Using LiveType in Your DVD Studio Pro Project

Importing a LiveType Project Into DVD Studio Pro

Making Changes to a LiveType Project Already in DVD Studio Pro

An Introduction to the Apple Post-Production Applications

Apple has created a family of professional audio and video applications that work together seamlessly in even the most demanding post-production workflows.

The Apple post-production applications deliver powerful editing tools, revolutionary sound design, real-time motion graphics, next-generation DVD authoring, and award-winning compositing tools. This document describes the roles of each application in the Final Cut Pro movie production process and the DVD Studio Pro DVD authoring process.

Post-production function Application Description

Editing Final Cut Pro

Cinema Tools

Audio Soundtrack Pro

Logic Pro

Compositing and motion graphics

Distribution DVD Studio Pro

Motion

LiveType

Shake

Compressor

Real-time editing for DV, SD, HD, and film Advanced tools for film

and 24p HD

Professional-quality audio post-production Advanced music creation

and audio production

Real-time motion graphics

design Dynamic animated titling

effect creation Advanced digital effects

compositing

Comprehensive DVD authoring for SD and HD movies Versatile, high-quality SD

and HD encoding

All of these applications, with the exception of Shake and Logic Pro, are included with Final Cut Studio—a comprehensive and integrated post-production package.

Overview of the Apple Post-Production Applications

Each of the Apple post-production applications provides industry-leading postproduction tools that give you all the power you need to complete even the most challenging projects.

Final Cut Pro

The scalability and performance of Final Cut Pro make it the ultimate movie editing application. You can work with virtually any format, from DV and HDV to DVCPRO HD to uncompressed 10-bit HD video. Final Cut Pro includes many professional features, including multicamera editing tools, advanced real-time color-correction and imagemanipulation filters, and audio control surface support.

Final Cut Pro is the central application that ties all the elements of your movie together. You can use Final Cut Pro to:

Capture video and audio from tape

Import QuickTime media files

Natively edit HDV video

Edit both single and multicamera projects

Edit film using Cinema Tools

Natively incorporate motion graphics projects from Motion and titles from LiveType

Mix, edit, and fix audio using Soundtrack Pro integration

When you have finished your movie, the entire project can be:

Output to a wide variety of standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) tape formats

Exported to a QuickTime movie file

Converted to an H.264, MPEG-2, or MPEG-1 file using Compressor, for DVD distribution using DVD Studio Pro

Converted to MPEG-1 or MPEG-4 formats using Compressor, for online web distribution

Soundtrack Pro

It is critical that your movie’s audio deliver a polished and complete experience that complements the video. Soundtrack Pro gives you the tools to handle every aspect of creating your soundtrack:

A powerful Waveform Editor for graphically editing your audio files and processing them using destructive or nondestructive actions. The Waveform Editor is also able to analyze and repair your audio files, and supports AppleScript to automate common tasks.

A Timeline that provides full multitrack editing and arranging capabilities

A console-style Mixer for mixing your multitrack projects

Roundtrip integration with Final Cut Pro and Motion that makes it easy to work on a project’s audio

A set of professional audio effects plug-ins you can use to manipulate your audio, including EQ, compression, reverb, and others

An extensive library of Apple Loops you can use to build the soundtrack for your project, including both sound effects and music cues

An integrated video display as well as support for an external video display, making it easy to view the video as you work on the audio

Motion

Motion is real-time motion graphics software that makes it easy for artists and editors to animate text, movies, and graphics for film, video, or DVD motion menus. Use Motion to easily create compelling motion graphics, animations, and title sequences for your Final Cut Pro movies. Additionally, the integration between DVD Studio Pro and Motion, along with the integration between Soundtrack Pro and Motion, makes it easy to create motion menus and transitions for your DVD projects. Among the features of Motion are:

Real-time design capabilities that allow you to create stunning effects using multiple streams of video, filters, text, and particles without rendering

Behaviors that you can use to create natural, fluid animations without keyframes

Powerful, customized particle effects like smoke and dust and animated motion that you can apply to your project elements

Layering and compositing capabilities that allow you to arrange your project’s elements in an unlimited number of layers

Native HDV support that preserves the quality of HDV format video without requiring transcoding to a different format

DVD Studio Pro

DVD Studio Pro is software for authoring DVD-Video titles. Video from Final Cut Pro and Motion, music and other audio from Soundtrack Pro, and still images from applications like Adobe Photoshop can be easily orchestrated into a DVD that can be played on a DVD player or a suitably equipped computer. DVDs can be authored to your exact specifications:

Feature films with subtitles and multiple camera angle selection

Special events, such as wedding, concert, and trade show videos

Interactive kiosks with extensive menu navigation and web URL links

Film dailies and video transfers

Art installations with automatic looping and random scene selection

You can use the templates, styles, and transition features included with DVD Studio Pro to quickly author your DVD project, or you can choose to manually author your DVD, maintaining precise control over every aspect of the project. Some of the included features are:

Support for authoring both standard DVDs and DVDs containing HD content, allowing you to choose the type of DVD that best fits your distribution needs

A scalable user interface that can be configured to match your needs, allowing you to decide which tools and displays you need

Support for sophisticated, high-end features, including multiple video angles and audio streams, subtitles, and the ability to create DVDs in multiple languages

Advanced authoring tools such as a VTS Editor that allows you to precisely define your DVD’s structure, as well as support for sophisticated scripting, including the ability to partition GPRMs into as many registers as your scripts require

Integration with Motion and LiveType that makes authoring your project seamless, allowing you to try several variations of a motion menu or an animated text effect

Compressor

Compressor provides an essential part of the video compression process (transcoding) by making compression fast, efficient, and convenient and giving you more options in your choices of compression presets, settings, and output formats.

Compressor also includes a high-quality standards conversion feature that can be used to:

Â Create a high-quality transcode of a video clip from its native format to the format of

the project’s sequence. For example, you might have a PAL clip that you need to use in an NTSC project—Compressor can create a high-quality NTSC version of the PAL clip.

Â Create two versions of a project. For example, you could edit your movie using HD

video sources, and then use Compressor to export both HD and SD versions of the movie so you can create both an SD-resolution and an HD-resolution DVD.

When used on computers with either DVD Studio Pro or Final Cut Studio installed, Compressor also includes AC-3 and distributed encoding capabilities.

Â The AC-3 encoder is used for encoding a variety of audio channel configurations,

such as stereo or 5.1 surround sound, into Dolby Digital audio streams suitable for use with DVD Studio Pro.

Â Distributed encoding, which divides your encoding tasks between multiple systems,

reduces the amount of time required for your encoding tasks.

LiveType

LiveType makes it easy to create sophisticated, professional-quality titles that you can use in your Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro projects. It includes project templates and royalty-free, broadcast-quality animated content you can customize to create dynamic text effects quickly and easily.

You can import a LiveType project directly into both Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro. Once a LiveType project has been imported into Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro, you can reopen the project in LiveType to make changes, and Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro automatically update to include the changes you made.

Cinema Tools

Cinema Tools provides tools for editing film and 24p projects in Final Cut Pro. Cinema Tools extends the functionality of Final Cut Pro, providing features previously found only on high-end or very specialized editing systems. See the Cinema Tools documentation for details on working with telecine logs, removing 3:2 pulldown while capturing clips, and exporting film lists.

Shake

Shake is a high-quality, node-based compositing and visual effects application for film and video. Shake supports most industry-standard graphics formats, and easily accommodates high-resolution and high-bit-depth image sequences and QuickTime files.

Among the many built-in tools in Shake are industry-standard keyers for pulling blue and green screens; a complete suite of color-correction tools; features for high-quality motion retiming and format remastering; motion tracking, smoothing, and stabilization capabilities; integrated procedural paint tools; and a rotoscoping and masking environment that provides complete control over animated and still mattes.

Final Cut Pro includes the ability to send one or more clips to Shake, where they can be processed and, once rendered, updated in Final Cut Pro.

Note: Shake is sold separately and is not included in Final Cut Studio.

Logic Pro

Logic Pro is a complete music workstation studio you can use for recording, arranging, mixing, and producing music projects. Logic Pro allows you to build musical arrangements using MIDI and software instruments alongside audio recordings of acoustic instruments and vocal performances, Apple Loops, and other prerecorded audio files.

Logic Pro can import and export individual audio files using a variety of formats. For more complicated projects involving Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro also includes the ability to import and export groups of audio clips and related information using the Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format. The Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format supports keyframes, markers, position, filters, and automation data.

Note: Logic Pro is sold separately and is not included in Final Cut Studio.

Using This Document

This document is intended to provide general information about each of the Apple post-production applications and specific information on the most common situations in which you would use two or more of the applications together.

Â “Using Apple Applications for Your Final Cut Pro Projects” on page 17 covers possible

workflows to use when producing your movie.

Â “Using Apple Applications for Your DVD Studio Pro Projects” on page 37 covers

possible workflows to use when making a DVD of your movie.

Note: User manuals for all of the applications, including those without printed manuals, can be found in the Documentation folder on the installation discs, or in each application’s Help menu. Refer to these documents for detailed instructions on using the applications.

To access the onscreen user manual for an application:

m In the application, choose the application’s user manual from the Help menu.

Sample Final Cut Studio Workflow

This section provides a sample workflow for a movie project to be distributed on DVD. It includes the most common situations you will encounter. See the following chapters for more information on the workflow options you have.

About Roundtrips Between Projects

Project roundtrips refer to the ability to embed and open application project files while working in another application. Many Apple post-production applications can directly import project files from each other. For example, you can import a title project created in LiveType into a Final Cut Pro project. This is much more efficient than rendering the LiveType movie and exporting it as a QuickTime movie each time you make changes. If you realize you need to make a change to the LiveType project while working in Final Cut Pro, you can open the project in LiveType directly from Final Cut Pro. When you save the LiveType project, any changes you make automatically appear in Final Cut Pro.

Important: Using an application’s project in another application requires the

computer to have the latest versions of both applications installed.

Using the Apple post-production applications to create a movie for distribution on a DVD involves three primary steps:

Â Editing the movie: You can use many of the applications to create the movie.

Â Final Cut Pro: Capture footage and edit the movie.

Â LiveType: Create the opening titles.

Â Motion: Add a compositing effect.

Â Soundtrack Pro: Clean up the audio and add sound effects.

Â Compressor: Convert a video clip’s video standard.

Â Encoding the movie: You can use Compressor to encode the video and audio into

DVD-compliant assets.

Â Authoring the DVD: You can use several of the applications to author the DVD used to

distribute the movie.

Â DVD Studio Pro: Configure the menus and tracks.

Â Motion: Create motion menu backgrounds.

Â Soundtrack Pro: Create the background audio for menus.

Editing the Movie

The first part of creating this sample project is to edit the movie. As you edit your movie in Final Cut Pro, you can use the other Apple post-production applications to enhance your project.

Step 1: Capture and edit in Final Cut Pro

Capturing and editing your project’s video and audio will occupy most of your time. Being familiar with your sources before starting this process can help reduce the amount of unused video and audio you capture, saving time and hard disk space.

Step 2: Create the opening titles in LiveType

You can take advantage of LiveType to create visually appealing animated graphics for your movie’s titles.

Although you can use the built-in Final Cut Pro text tools to create your movie’s opening titles, you may want the titles to use a particular animated effect. Using LiveType to create the opening titles allows you to use a wide variety of effects on the text and provides complete control over the look of the titles.

You import LiveType projects into Final Cut Pro the same way you import other assets—the LiveType project behaves just like any other clip your project might use. If you need to make changes to the LiveType project while working in Final Cut Pro, you can easily open the project in LiveType, make the changes, and then save the project and go back to Final Cut Pro—the LiveType project clip automatically updates to include the LiveType project changes.

See “Using LiveType With Final Cut Pro” on page 29 for more information.

Step 3: Add a compositing effect in Motion

Final Cut Pro includes extensive support for adding a variety of effects to your movie. However, for those times when you need precise control over a complicated multilayer effect or you want to add sophisticated animation or particle effects, using Motion can make all the difference.

For example, if your movie has a section where you have a group of still images that you need to have move onto and off of the screen over a synchronized background, you can use Motion to create the effects. You can set In and Out points in the Final Cut Pro Timeline to identify the area where the effect appears, and then export that section of your sequence to Motion to use as the background. In Motion, you can easily add and configure all aspects of the layers, even adding particle effects, and see it all play in real time. Once you are satisfied with the result, you simply save it as a Motion project without the background. When you go back to Final Cut Pro, you can import the Motion project and place it in the Timeline. You can then go back to the Motion project and make changes, and Final Cut Pro automatically updates to include the changes you made.

See “Using Motion With Final Cut Pro” on page 23 for more information.

Step 4: Clean up the audio and add effects in Soundtrack Pro

In addition to using Soundtrack Pro to create an original soundtrack for your movie, you can use it to work with existing audio in a variety of ways. Two of the most common are cleaning up a clip’s audio and adding an effect to a sequence.

Cleaning Up a Clip’s Audio

Soundtrack Pro includes a Waveform Editor for working with a clip’s audio. The Waveform Editor allows you to destructively or nondestructively apply a variety of actions to the audio, making it easy to repair or enhance an audio clip. Actions can include audio effects, such as EQ, compression, or reverb, as well as processes such as reducing noise, adding ambient noise, inserting silence, or converting a stereo file to mono.

You can edit audio clips either nondestructively or destructively in Soundtrack Pro. For repetitive tasks, you can also use one of the scripts included with Soundtrack Pro or create your own scripts in the Waveform Editor.

See “Working With a Single Clip From Final Cut Pro” on page 18 for more information.

Adding Effects to a Clip or Sequence

You can also use Soundtrack Pro to add sophisticated audio effects to your movie. For example, you can enhance a shot’s ambient sound, modify the equalization, or add compression or reverb. You can work with a single clip, a set of clips you select in the Final Cut Pro Timeline, or the entire sequence.

From Final Cut Pro, you send the selected clip or clips or the sequence to Soundtrack Pro, where you work with the audio in the Timeline and Mixer. Once you have finished, you save the Soundtrack Pro project and export a mix to use in place of the originally exported Final Cut Pro audio.

See “Working With Multiple Audio Tracks From Final Cut Pro” on page 21 for more information.

Step 5: Convert a video clip’s video standard

At times, you may need to incorporate a video clip into a sequence with a different video standard. For example, if you are editing an HD 1080i project and need to include an NTSC 480i clip, the NTSC clip must be scaled to the 1080i frame size. You can do this in Final Cut Pro by adding the clip to the sequence and then rendering it, but for the best quality, you should use Compressor to scale the video.

To use Compressor to scale a video clip, you need to add it to a Compressor batch and assign a preset that matches the sequence’s video settings (video frame size, frame rate, and format). You also need to configure the Frame Controls pane in the Compressor Inspector, which sets Compressor to perform a high-quality scale change on the video. Once Compressor finishes, you can import the scaled clip into your Final Cut Pro project and add it to the sequence without needing to render it.

See “Converting a Video Clip to a Different Video Standard” on page 28 for more information.

Encoding the Movie

Once you have completed your movie, you need to encode the movie’s video and audio in DVD-compliant formats.

Using Compressor to export the movie is the preferred method since it provides the most options and highest quality. Another advantage of exporting using Compressor is that you do not need to render your sequence first—it will automatically render as necessary during the export.

The key to exporting with Compressor is selecting and configuring appropriate presets. Presets define how the video and audio are encoded. Compressor includes a variety of presets you can use, or you can create your own custom presets or modify an existing preset’s configuration.

You can even apply multiple presets to the sequence, which makes it possible to output multiple versions of the video and audio. For example, if your movie uses HD assets, you can choose a preset to provide an SD output (for creating a standard DVD) and an HD output (for creating a DVD using the HD video resolutions).

See “Exporting Your Movie Using Compressor” on page 27 for more information.

Authoring the DVD

Authoring a DVD starts with planning for what the DVD should contain and how the viewer will play it. Once you have exported your Final Cut Pro movie, you can quickly author simple DVDs—you don’t even have to include a menu.

For most DVD projects, however, you will want to add at least an opening menu, and more often, bonus tracks and slideshows.

If you intend to author both an SD and an HD version of your project, you should author the SD version first. Since the HD version can contain SD assets, you can simply save the SD version as the HD version, and then replace some or all of the SD assets with HD assets.

You author the elements of your DVD project in any order you want; however, there are advantages to creating your menus first. Since the menus provide the majority of the navigation options, having them already in place makes it easier to ensure the tracks (which contain your movies) and slideshows can be accessed and set to act correctly when they reach their end.

Step 1: Create motion menu backgrounds in Motion

The menus in your DVD can be simple, static images or full-motion video. In both cases, you can also add audio to the menus. The only requirement for a menu is that it has the necessary buttons to make it clear how to access the tracks, slideshows, and other menus on the DVD.

For example, you can use Motion to create a motion menu background from a small part of the movie. You can add filters to it, such as softening and colorization effects, and add text and button graphics.

A common approach is to have the menu begin with an introduction, such as having the buttons and text fly onto the screen, and then have its elements settle into place for the viewer to select from. In Motion, you can set a marker that defines a loop point so that when the menu plays, instead of looping back to the menu’s beginning once the end is reached, it can loop back to the point you set and avoid playing the introduction section again.

Once you have created a motion menu in Motion, you can import the Motion project into your DVD Studio Pro project. You treat the project just like any other asset—for example, you can drag it to a menu to set it as the background. If you need to make changes to the Motion project, you can double-click it in DVD Studio Pro and it opens in Motion. Once you make the changes and save the project, it will automatically be updated in the DVD Studio Pro project.

See “Using Motion in Your DVD Studio Pro Project” on page 39 for more information, including details on creating Alpha Transitions with Motion.

Step 2: Create the main tracks in DVD Studio Pro

Creating a track in DVD Studio Pro can be as easy as importing the video and audio assets into your project and dragging them to the menu that will have the button to access the track. DVD Studio Pro can automatically create the track, place a button on the menu, and link the button to the track.

You can configure the track in a number of ways, such as adding chapter markers for easier navigation or defining what happens when remote control buttons are pressed.

Step 3: Create menu audio in Soundtrack Pro

Adding audio to your menus, even those using still backgrounds, is an easy way to make the DVD more enjoyable. Soundtrack Pro includes an extensive set of Apple Loops from which you can quickly create royalty-free audio clips that are perfect for a menu’s audio. You can also add effects to the audio, which can be useful for motion menus that need audio to coincide with actions such as buttons dropping into place.

You can export your audio directly from Soundtrack Pro as AIFF audio files or, when you export using Compressor, as Dolby Digital AC-3 files. Additionally, you can take advantage of the Soundtrack Pro integration with Motion to easily coordinate the menu’s audio with its video and ensure they complement each other perfectly.

See “Using Soundtrack Pro in Your DVD Studio Pro Project” on page 45 and “Using

Soundtrack Pro With Motion Projects” on page 46 for more information.

Step 4: Burn the DVD using DVD Studio Pro

Once you have completed your project, you are ready to burn it to a disc. Throughout the authoring process you can simulate the project to ensure its elements work as intended. However, playing the actual compiled files is the best test of the project. You can use DVD Studio Pro to build the project without actually burning a disc, and then play the project with the Apple DVD Player to test it. Once you are satisfied with the project, you can burn it to a DVD.

1 Using Apple Applications

for Your Final Cut Pro Projects

The Apple post-production applications provide invaluable tools to enhance your Final Cut Pro projects.

Final Cut Pro by itself is a complete editing solution. It includes:

Â Graphics compositing with motion capabilities

Â Text titling capabilities

Â Audio editing and mixing capabilities

The Apple post-production applications, however, greatly enhance these capabilities, making it possible to create extremely sophisticated and full-featured movies with Final Cut Pro.

Using Soundtrack Pro With Final Cut Pro

You can use Soundtrack Pro with your Final Cut Pro projects in two basic ways: for creating audio and for repairing, enhancing, and mixing audio.

You can use Soundtrack Pro for every aspect of creating audio for a project, from recording to advanced audio processing and mixing. In Soundtrack Pro, you can open audio clips directly from Final Cut Pro, and, when you have finished working on the audio in Soundtrack Pro and saved the project, the project automatically updates in Final Cut Pro, making roundtrip processing fast and simple.

+ 37 hidden pages

Apple Final Cut Studio Instruction Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

Overview of the Apple Post-Production Applications

Using This Document

Sample Final Cut Studio Workflow

About Roundtrips Between Projects

Editing the Movie

Encoding the Movie

Authoring the DVD

Using Soundtrack Pro With Final Cut Pro