Roo Around The World

Right, first thing’s first. Mac or PC? In my humble opinion Mac’s win every time. Their user interface is superb, they look fantastic, and they don’t crash right when you’re at a vital stage of whatever you’re working on. To put it simply, they just work. Also, PC’s use Windows Movie Maker, which is rubbish. And yes they can run Adobe Premiere and Avid editing systems which in all honestly are fine, but you just don’t get that same slick process as you would on a Mac. It all just feels a bit clunky.

Now that’s out of the way, I’ll move onto the question of which editing software to use. On a Mac you have a choice of two main options, iMovie or Final Cut:
– iMovie is part of Apple’s iLife package and comes as standard with every. It is a wonderfully crafted piece of software and works right out of the box, so that anyone at any skill level can create their own movies.
– If you want to step it up a gear and feel that you know a bit more about editing that any Tom, Dick or Harry you could use a version of Final Cut  – Express, Pro, or even the whole Studio package for those who really want to go the whole hog and gain control of every aspect of their film.

I highly recommend both of these, and even though I’m now taking editing more seriously and am using FCP (what with it being my focus for my final uni project, and what I want to do as a career), I still go back to iMovie occasionally, for some quick and fun editing on simpler projects.

Coming up in this series of video-making tips, I will be discussing how each of these editing systems work, and how they differ in their processes.

*UPDATE: As a friend has pointed out (see comment below), you can of course also use Avid on a Mac, which in essence is basically the same as FCP, with a few minor alterations in the way it works. However, as I’m not an Avid user, I wont be handing out any advice that I can’t back up!