iMovie Vs Final Cut Express/pro and making$$$?

Hi there,
I learned Final Cut Express last year. Very steap learning curve! I have now just discovered Slick plug-ins for iMovie and am amazed at how powerful it can make the iMovie application. I just came acrossed your post and I am curious if you have tried to use both applications for one project. Does it work well to import into iMovie and do what you need there and then import that into FCE if you need to add anything special to it? I'd really appreciate your feedback.

Thanks!
Karen

Were you asking only Jane, or anyone..?

ANYONE Definitely would love any feedback, thanks!!

Karen

Hi:
I`ve read you do family movies, thats exactly what I do, but not for bussiness, please, please tell me what preferences do you choose for the project and for sharing it, to get the best quality as possible on DVD
I used to work with Adobe Premiere Pro on a PC and I am new in Mac, please help me.
Its just because I think you have great results with imovie and I dont.
Thank you.
Beatriz

"..Does it work well to import into iMovie and do what you need there and then import that into FCE if you need to add anything special to it?.."

I find that it doesn't work well to mix and match projects between iMovie HD, Final Cut Express HD and Final Cut Pro HD ..although it can if there's some special feature of Final Cut which you particularly want to make use of.

[..That might be something like creating extra-fancy titles, or including pictures from Photoshop (..or some other image-editing program..) which have parts of the image stored as separate "layers". iMovie doesn't understand or keep these individual layers, but Final Cut does, and can put the layers on separate video tracks, to dissolve between them, for instance. This can produce complex titling, or overlays, or other effects..]

But - despite FCE supposedly being able to import iMovie projects - I find that FCE won't properly import hi-def (HDV) projects from iMovie HD 6, but maybe that's just my setup. I haven't tried with normal DV projects ..yet.

By contrast, Final Cut Pro HD 5.1 does easily import hi-def projects from iMovie HD 6 ..but it may say that some things, such as titles, may need re-rendering (adjusting or 'remanufacturing') in FCP before they can be successfully used there. Re-rendering them is a simple, automated, once-only job, though.

When iMovie HD projects are imported into FCP, they're presented as separate clips in the way that FCP stores and handles clips - which is quite different from the way that iMovie stores and handles them.

They're shown stored in the 'Browser' (..a kind of clip bin on the left..) and NOT in a simple Clip Pane (..like iMovie's stack of thumbnails on the right).

BUT they are also dropped automatically into the Final Cut's Timeline at the bottom of the screen, so the entire sequence, or project, can be played straight away, just by tapping the spacebar - as in iMovie.

Because you're used to working in Final Cut, you may not find it awkward that it has a completely different 'interface' - or 'look and feel' - from the simplicity of iMovie. Many things - to an FCP novice - seem extremely complicated. But there is a very useful little volume meter - like the LED segment graphic displays on amplifiers - which shows whether your audio's too high, too low, or just right.

There are very fine colour adjustments - as you probably know - available in FCP which just aren't there in iMovie. But as I'm rather colour-blind, I don't trust myself to use them.

You certainly can do 'fine tweaking' in Final Cut, and there are umpteen separate audio tracks to play with - plus umpteen video tracks which can be used to add graphics, or to cut back-and-forth between different shots - and each of those audio tracks can be configured as either left or right ..so you can play with the stereo "soundstage" in a way which you can't do directly in iMovie ..although there are several audio-editing programs which will easily tweak iMovie's own audio between left and right channels ..including the free "Audacity".. so you don't need the expensive Final Cut to do that.

By importing and doing a 'rough cut' in iMovie first, and then opening that same iMovie project in Final Cut, you - or I - avoid the tedious and complex methods of capture in Final Cut ..which drive me nuts. (..Although you can 'Capture Now' in Final Cut, it generally expects you to play through your tapes, marking 'IN' and 'OUT' points, and then to play them all over again to actually import, or capture, the video..) It's so much simpler, I think, with iMovie!

An excellent way to learn Final Cut - if you do want to do that - is to create and edit a project first in iMovie, and then to import that project into Final Cut. You can then see your familiar material in its new surroundings, and you get to understand more easily how the very much more complex Final Cut actually works ..rather than just starting Final Cut with a blank screen, or just following a tutorial, and trying to understand what's happening and what you're supposed to do.

Here's the project which created that sample movie for Dan about using a fixed exposure:



..And here's that same iMovie HD 6 project opened in Final Cut Pro 5.1:



[..To see both those two pics at higher resolution, and to examine them in detail, just click on "Start Slideshow" on this page..]

All I do is to click on the word 'Share' at the top of the iMovie HD 6 screen, and then on 'iDVD', click 'Share' again, then on 'File' (..in iDVD..) and click 'Burn DVD'.

Karl or Matti may have extra recommendations about letting iDVD "render" (re-do) some things if you've included photos in your iMovie project, or a better way to export to iDVD.

But I usually just click on those few words, and things seem to "..just work!"

Thank you very much.... I will do so