Final Cut Pro Efficient Editing

Amazing would recommend to all video editors. Especially newer ones.

Even though I was warned that this book was "thorough" and a "bible on Final Cut", I went ahead and bought it while learning. My recommendation to others is to learn "the basics" of very simple projects first, and learn those basics well. You can do that from more basic books or from Ripple Training, which I found excellent.This book, Efficient Editing, is for someone who fully knows the basics and is completely comfortable with the Mac file system and the way Final Cut organizes projects.

I have FCPX training videos by Iain Anderson and they are quite excellent. I consider him to be a top notch presenter. So, it was with great anticipation that I waited for this rather pricey book to arrive. At first glance "Final Cut Pro Efficient Editing: Smart, quick, and effective video editing with FCP 10.5" has quite the wow factor. Of course, that was until I began to dig into it. This is not a FCPX reference book. Instead, it is a tutorial laid out in sequential fashion. Each chapter begins with the expectation that you have read and completed exercises laid out in previous chapters. The author's intent appears to be for you start with page one and continue through the next 700+ pages … in order. Well, that greatly impedes one's ability to look up a topic in hopes to finding an answer to an editing issue you are attempting to resolve. A YouTube search would likely be more effective, or I guess you could put your project, and your life, on hold for six months or so as you wade through 700+ pages while completing all exercises. Not going to happen in my world.I suspect that the intent of this book was actually for a series of FCPX training videos that morphed into book format instead.I cannot recommend this book as a reference, or as a tutorial (no resources provided), and I do give it a big thumbs down.I am giving it two stars, not one, in the hopes that I may be able to eventually extract something useful from it.

I have purchased a number of FCP books over recent years and I rate this one highly. I have found it to be instructive and informative complete with plenty of imagery to smooth the process. It is expensive but pretty up to date and in my opinion, worth the outlay if you want to learn FCP or indeed move beyond the basics.

I’m sure this is a great A to Z book. When there are photos referencing topics in the book you can’t see the images clearly.Makes following along to the images worthless.Sending it back!