3 Timesavers in Final Cut Studio 2 Washington DC

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Originally published at Internet.com

What are the best new features in Apple's recently released Final Cut Studio 2? We spoke with a working director and editor to find out what he considers the most welcome improvements to this powerhouse suite.

Steven Boe of Imaginal Cells, Inc.

Steven Boe is a filmmaker, Final Cut Pro instructor, and business-owner in Los Angeles, California. As someone who not only uses Final Cut Studio for his personal and professional projects, but also teaches it to new editors, he's a great resource to discover what improvements really pay off.

File-Finding Made Easy
"The number one reason I get called is people who say, 'I can't find my file. Where's my file?'" says Boe.

The reason is that previous Final Cut versions made it easy to rename a file in the browser window, but that name wouldn't match up with the file stored on the hard drive.

With the latest Final Cut release, though, it's easy to make sure that the video in your browser window and the file on your drive have the same name. Simply right-click (a two-button mouse is a must for editing, Boe says) on the video, select the renaming option, and choose either to make the clip's name match the file's name or to make the file's name match the clip's name.

"That's a great feature," Boe says, "because the one area where Final Cut lags behind Avid is in media management. If they can get the media management that Avid has, that would be great."

This is a real help for beginners, notes Boe, who says that they rename their files often and then have no idea where they're stored.

Multi-Format Editing
The latest Final Cut lets you mix clips with different formats in a single timeline, which is a big help, but the way that the program automatically creates settings for a new project is just as useful. When you drag a clip onto a new timeline, Final Cut asks if you want to create settings for the project to match that clip. Before, users had to create settings by hand, something that could be difficult for new users who didn't understand all the parameters. Now, the program can set the parameters to match those of the first clip. To make creating settings easy, be sure the first clip entered is in the format you'll want for your final output.

Template Use and Round-Trip Editing
Because the applications in the Final Cut Studio suite now offer more integration, users can easily add Motion templates from within Final Cut. In the timeline, click on Sequence to open a pulldown menu, then select to add a master template. You'll then get a window with all the available Motion templates; click the one you want to insert.

Templates offer an easy way for beginners to get started, so having them accessible from Final Cut is a big help. Previously, people had to create a new project in Motion, then export it to Final Cut. Filmmakers can also use Motion to create custom templates, which will also be available within Final Cut.

To contact Steven Boe, visit his company's site, Imaginal Cells, Inc. You can also view the trailer for his latest documentary, "Mythic Journeys," which was created entirely with Final Cut