Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 6 (Apple Pro Training)

Excellent. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn FC Pro 6. Without incurring a lot of money and time at a training facility one can learn the essentials of NLE at one's own pace.

After struggling for a few weeks trying to learn Final Cut Pro from the 4 volume set of books that came with the software, I was almost ready to call it quits and dump $900(USD) into one of the 3 day Final Cut Pro certification courses. After learning that this is the book that is used with those courses, and having heard Great things about Peach Pit Press, and after reading the reviews here, I decided to get this book and give it a go.

First let me say that I am not a typical 'learn from the books' kind of learner. I usually (especially with software) just hack around and figure things out. Final Cut is pretty complicated, and I need to know how to operate it pretty quickly (changing computers and software for editing, Win->Mac). I have learned most of what I need to get going on some projects after just going through the first 4 lessons! I am not going to stop there, I plan to finish this book, and probably look into additional volumes from this series for things like Soundtrack Pro and Motion.

Sure the Sea World footage and especially the music is cheesy, but you are encouraged to do additional work at the end of each lesson, to reinforce what you were just taught. This is where it gets fun! I found myself taking some music from my collection and replacing the awful Sea World song, and cutting footage to that instead.

I did not experience any problem with any of the projects opening (I took a peek).

If you are wanting to get to know this software, this is a great book to start with!

Concise and to the point. Lessons well laid out, will give you a good working knowledge of FCP.

Would give this book a 5 except that I am unable to do the last 4 chapters -- titles, motio and filters -- as some of the media refuses to reconnect due to inaccurate start/end points on the clips.

So, the 2/3 of the book I WAS able to do were excellent.

There is no better book for beginning editors. I recommend it to all those trying to learn the basics (and some moderately advanced workflow things) of Final Cut Pro 6.

The book is actually really awesome even when you take the FCP class. The book walks your through a lot of things that may not be straight forward.


Sound examples and good tutorials.