Apple Final Cut Express HD - Manual (Page 44)

44 Part I An Introduction to Final Cut Express HD
Organizing Your Projects
Typically, you create a new project file for each movie you work on, regardless of its
duration. For example, if you’re working on a documentary about a bicycle
manufacturing company, you would create a project for it. If you’re also working on an
industrial training video about how to fix bicycles, that would be a second, separate
project. Both projects could conceivably refer to some of the same media, but they are
completely independent structures, each with their own clips, bins, and sequences.
Very large movie projects, such as feature films and documentaries with high shooting
ratios (meaning most of the footage shot during production will not be used in the
final movie), may contain thousands of clips. Although the number of clips and
sequences you can store in a project is theoretically unlimited, Final Cut Express HD
may take longer to search, sort, and update if there are too many clips. If you find that
managing your project is becoming difficult, you can always break one project into
several for the early editing stages.
Using More Than One Sequence in a Project
For some projects, it makes sense to use several different sequences within the project.
You can use sequences in several ways including:
 Sequences as scenes: Break a movie into a series of separate sequences for each scene.
 Sequences as versions: Edit different versions of the same movie, with each as its own
sequence. Examples are a television commercial with several alternative sound mixes,
or a documentary cut to feature film length as well as broadcast television length.
 Sequences for special effects: This allows you to separate elaborate effects shots in
separate sequences so you can render them separately.
Creating and Saving Projects
When you create a new project in Final Cut Express HD, a new blank sequence is
automatically created and named Sequence 1. You can change the sequence name to
better reflect its content or the type of program you’ll be working on. The settings for
the new sequence are determined by your current Easy Setup. (To check your current
Easy Setup, choose Final Cut Express HD > Easy Setup.)
Note: When you open Final Cut Express HD for the first time, there are some initial
settings you must specify before you can create and save projects. For more
information, see “
Connecting Your Equipment ” on page 145.