Final Cut Pro 5
Author: Diana Weynand
Review by Ryun Hovind

To many this book will be a user-friendly way to get to know FCPro 5. For me this book was the key to certification. But what is certification? Think about it. Certifiably insane, certified mail, Apple certified. There’s something about being certified. It magnifies everything, regardless of what it is. It was perhaps this reason that I, despite being in Nashville already for 4 years and using Final Cut Pro professionally, got the bug to “get certified”.
Or it could be that I was editing the third installment of a sketch comedy show entitled “The Leftovers” and I thought this book might equip me with some shortcuts in my everyday editing activity. I’ve come to believe that no matter how advanced you get, there are always overlooked basics that you can revisit to make life easier.
Sure enough I picked up several timesaving techniques. Simple things, like “Command + 8” opens up the capture window and hitting “Control + F12” refreshes DV devices. I’d been using “Shift + Arrow key” to move forward and back 10 frames, but seeing the whole timeline by hitting “Shift + Z” became my favorite new way to travel.
The great thing about the book is that it is exhaustive. Important interface details and FCP essentials are in there. For me, it acted as a reference manual where keywords were much easier to find than in the FCP manuals. For example, say you forgot how to import audio. Simply go to the book’s index, then go to the corresponding page in Final Cut Pro 5, and voila. Simple. Grab the hand icon that isn't there for the video clips and drag into the timeline.
As I prepared for the Final Cut Certification Test I found the book to be most helpful as a Q&A pretest. Since I've edited for years, I was looking for specific test answers not a "What is digital video?" primer. So I often just went to the back of each chapter and made sure that I knew the answers to their chapter review questions. If I did I moved on. The key to passing the certification is knowing all three ways of the ways to do something, not just the one way you have been doing it for years.
I recommend this book to anyone getting certified or wanting an extra tool to master FCP basics. For those who already know FCP and don’t need certification, I'd say invest your money into the Advanced Finishing Techniques Book where magic really starts to happen.

Ryun Hovind is a Final Cut Studio Editor
and is an Express Member of NAProViG.