So this past week I’ve been learning to use a couple of video editing softwares, Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere. I’ve used a bunch of different softwares along this line in the past, especially free ones, and cheap ones (like Windows Movie editor and even a program called Magix Movie Editor, which is made by Germans and something almost everyone I have mentioned it to has never heard of). =) In any case, it has given me a strong conviction that there are an endless amount of pros and cons a specific editing program can have. Learning Final Cut Pro X (which happens to be a program that a lot of proffessionals look down on for various reasons) and Adobe Premiere, has really deepend that conviction.

Final Cut X is interesting in that it is the latest in a relatively successful series of releases by Apple for video editing, yet it caused a lot of commotion when it was released because this version was more or less an overhaul of the previous one. A lot of people stopped using Final Cut as a result, but learning it during this past week I have seen that there are tools in it which can be incredibly useful and lead to cutting a lot of time out of the editing process, and while it may not have all the bells and whistles of more expensive programs (or even previous versions of itself) it is very cohesive and a decent editing software all around. Adobe Premiere is less cohesive and can be a bit of a pain, but it’s options for importing files created in After Effects or Photoshop can’t be beat, which is a great feature.

So at the end of the day it’s mostly horses and courses, and I’ve learned it almost always a good idea to have a good variety of softwares available for use to maximize efficiency and take advantage of the many pros and cons each software has.

By: John