MiniVid: Editing using Final Cut Pro

Selection of effects to chose from 

Despite there being 5 members in our group, we all individually edited our own cut of the final video, to allow ourselves to gain more experience and experiment with different and new effects. Although we have used this software before, we have not been introduced to the hundreds of effects available, so by individually editing the video we can all see for ourselves what we can use to make the video as effective as possible. Whilst editing my video, I used many different effects that I had never used before. Before I began to work towards the final cut, I had a play around with the different effects by layering them up on multiple shots, to see what they looked like when applied to a clip. Once I had an idea what these effects looked like and had learnt how to edit them once they were applied, I started from scratch, and added the effects that I thought were effective to the edited clips.


This screenshot from the software Final Cut Pro shows how I added 2 effects to this clip. I added the 'Isolate' effect, which has distorted the colour and has given it a dull, greyish effect. I then added the 'Earthquake' effect, which adds a slight shake to the shot. I thought these two effects worked well together, as the dullness and shakiness signify the pirate theme.

Selected clip and the preview

Here is a clip with the 'Sketch' effect in use. After this screenshot was taken, I reduced the intensity of the effect, so that the effect was faded yet still visible. I used this effect multiple times throughout the final cut, on the other clips of swinging on the ropes, as I thought it worked well on these shots. It took me a while to decide upon this effect, but once I reduced the intensity it looked much better so I stuck with it.

Editing the effects

This is the panel which I used to edit the effects. There were two effects added to this clip, 'Keyer' and 'Indie Red', however I have removed the 'Keyer' effect, which can be seen here as the box has been un-ticked. I decided to remove this effect and add the 'Indie Red' effect as I thought it looked better and fitted well with the rest of the video. Whenever I added an effect, this panel would be shown, and this is where I reduced/increased the intensity and edited the colours of the shots. When I first began the editing, it all seemed slightly complicated as it was new to me, however once I got into it, it became easy to navigate and the tools were easy to use.

Final track and video 

This is a screenshot of the final edited video, with the track added. Some of the effects are still rendering, but after this rendering had finished, I exported the video.