Appendix 1

The Filmmaker’s Guide to Final Cut Pro Workfl ow
Figure A9.1 Poster from Success
Production audio was transferred to DVCam tape and batch captured. There was no need to pull
down as the shooting and edit frame rate was 23.98. Audio was sunc to the sticks in the timeline and
each shot was exported to a new directory for editing. This is an unusual system for syncing, but is
100 percent dependable and avoids both the merge clip and link clip functions. It does require more
drive space, but some fi lmmakers prefer it just for its reliability. A 23.98 sequence was created and
the project was edited.
Most interestingly, the footage was captured to the hard drive of a G4 laptop. The entire project was
then portable and could be edited wherever and whenever the fi lmmaker felt the urge.
Often, when editing on a laptop, many editors will use the photo JPEG capture settings to save drive
space. In this case, the capture was done with the DV capture settings to keep the edit image as clean
as possible. There were even several test screenings in a high-defi nition theater directly from
the laptop and the DV image looked quite good. While editing, an optical mouse and keyboard,
seventeen-inch monitor, and NTSC video monitor were used with the laptop.
The sound edit and mix were also done in Final Cut Pro on the laptop. Reference monitors were
attached to a DVCam deck for audio monitoring. The fi nal mix was astonishingly good in spite of
being done in Final Cut Pro on a laptop.
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