Build a rough cut in Final Cut

Identify your best footage and assemble it in a timeline, ready for polishing

You’ll need to make a project in order to assemble a rough cut of your film. Choose File > New Project to create a timeline into which you’ll add portions of imported clips. Final Cut asks you to name the project, and in which Event to store it. Choose the one into which you imported clips. When you click OK, the project will adopt default settings if this is your first project, or keep existing settings otherwise.

Let’s assemble a rough cut of your film, which we’ll later refine using advanced tools

Pressing Use Custom Settings lets you specify a frame size and rate, or let Final Cut decide what’s best based on the first clip you add. The latter is useful if you work with a single camera or several that shoot to the same specifications. Manual decisions ensure you get exactly what you want. We’ll use stereo audio, but Final Cut can work with surround sound.

The ProRes 422 (LT) render format uses a lower data rate and will save you some disk space. If you make a mistake, simply select the project in the Browser, then click Info, then Modify Settings in the Inspector.

Click OK to confirm your choices and create the project. Now you’re ready to get down to the creative work of assembling a rough cut of your film. Alan Stonebridge