FastCut — User's Guide
Getting Started
After having imported the movie files by choosing 'Import…' from the 'File' menu, double click a clip in the 'Browser' window to load it into the 'Monitor'. Here you may set in and out points, use the two buttons in the bottom right corner. The clip segment between the in and out point is now prepared to be included into your movie.
Drag and drop the clip from the 'Monitor' to the 'Timeline' window. Drop it onto a video track (V1, V2, …) to include the video media of your source material and once again onto an audio track (A1, A2, …) to include the audio media. Now, move the playhead slider in the 'Timeline' or press the 'P' button in the 'Monitor' to switch to preview mode. Hit the play button (in the 'Monitor'), and voilà, here is your movie.
1. Project
After application launch FastCut automatically creates a new project at the default location 'Movies/My Great Movie'. Choose 'New Project…' from the 'File' menu to specify the project location on your hard drive for your own. You may open and save a project by choosing 'Open Project…' and 'Save Project', respectively, from the 'File' menu.
2. Preferences
Choose 'Preferences…' from the application menu. The appearing preferences dialog allows you to specify the framesize and framerate for your movie. FastCut is ready for high definition (HD) video.
You may also set the playback quality to low, high or dynamic. Dynamic means that FastCut automatically changes the quality on playback depending on the current framerate for optimal playback performance. You may also setup if the 'Inspector' window should show and hide automatically (default).
3. Import
Import audio, video and still picture files by choosing 'Import…' from the 'File' menu. The files ought to be readable by QuickTime. Note that MPEG-2 is not supprted. MPEG4, H.264 and Sorenson 3 formats are not recommended for editing on elder computers.
You may import TIFF images with an alpha channel. Make sure that the TIFF files have the .tiff file extension or HFS file type 'TIFF'.
In order to capture audio visual media from a camcorder or a video recorder please use a good tool from Apple called 'WhackedTV' since FastCut is not able to capture on its self yet. You can download it directly from:
Any clip you import is copied (that's not quite right: FastCut works with references to the original clip. Thus, a project file needs only a few kilo- or megabytes.) and packed into your FastCut project file, thus, the original source material won't be modified by FastCut.
4. Editing
Before you add a clip to the timeline you can edit it in the 'Monitor' with the standard tools which you can find in any QuickTime-savvy application. Hold down the shift key to make a selection in the timeline of the 'Monitor', then apply menu commands from the 'Edit' menu such as 'Cut', Copy', 'Paste', 'Delete', 'Add', 'Trim', 'Undo' and so on to the selected clip segment. Use the 'Save Clip' and 'Save Clip As…' commands to save your modifications.
Use the two buttons in the bottom right corner of the 'Monitor' window to set in and out points for your clip. Now, the clip is prepared for the 'Timeline'.
Notice that the 'Monitor' can be used in editing mode and in preview mode (see 6. Preview).
5. Timeline
The 'Timeline' window shows the movie tracks. By default the first two tracks are video tracks and the second two are audio tracks. In general video tracks are stacked on top of audio tracks. When you insert a clip by drag & drop from the 'Monitor' window you, will notice that video clips are marked blue for recognition and audio clips red.
To select multiple clips hold down the shift key. Use the 'Delete' command in the 'Edit' menu menu to remove clips from the timeline.
Choose 'Add Video Track', 'Add Audio Track' and 'Remove Tracks…' from the 'Movie' menu to add and remove tracks. If you have (only) one clip selected, new tracks are inserted below / above (video / audio) the track of the selected clip. If you have multiple clips or none selected, tracks are added above / below (video / audio) the whole track stack.
Let's assume you have put two clips on the same track and you would like to close the gap between them. Hold down the option key while clicking in the gap. You may also click in the gap after having chosen the 'Close Gap Before Clip…' command from the 'Movie' menu.
In order to jump to the start or end point of the currently selected clip choose 'Goto Clip Start Point' or 'Goto Clip End Point'.
6. Preview
If you have turned on preview mode by pressing the 'P' button in the 'Monitor' for instance, then , what you see in the 'Monitor', is the graphical equivalent of the timeline. Single clips from the browser list or the timeline can me loaded by double-clicking in the 'Monitor' — FastCut automatically switches from the preview mode into editing mode (if necessary).
7. Inspector
The 'Inspector' allows you to manipulate clip properties, such as clip size or clip contrast. It shows up automatically depending on the preferences. Choose 'Show Inspector'/'Hide Inspector' from the 'Window' menu to show/hide the 'Inspector' window manually.
8. Transitions
Put two clips in the timeline on the same track and close the gap between them (see section 'Timeline'). Now select both clips and choose 'Apply Transition' from the 'Movie' menu. A yellow transition clip is created between the two source clips. Note that you need surplus frames at tail and head of the clips, respectively, to apply a transition. Thus, set in and out points appropriately. By default a cross fade transition is created, the most common transition type. In order to change the transition type select the transiton and change the type in the 'Inspector' window.
9. Filters
The 'Inspector' allows you to adjust hue, saturation, brightness, contrast and sharpness of a clip.
10. Animation
There are clip properties which are animatable over time: position, size, rotation, opacity, volume, hue, saturation, brightness, contrast and sharpness. These properties are marked in the inspector (notice the points on the right side). Use the 'Enabled' check box in the 'Animation' section of the 'Inspector' to turn on animation. Then move the playhead slider in the timeline to specify a point in time and press the plus button in the 'Inspector' to add a keyframe. The point in time associated with a keyframe does not necessarily have to be between start and end point of the clip. The keyframes are listed in a popup menu in the 'Animation' section. To set the animatable parameters for a certain keyframe, choose the keyframe from the popup menu (the playhead slider jumps to the keyframe in the timeline) and then set the parameters. The parameters of frames between two keyframes are computed (linear interpolation).
If you like to change the clip position and size directly with the mouse in the 'Monitor' window, turn on 'wireframe mode' by clicking the wireframe botton in the bottom right corner of the 'Monitor' window, select a clip in the 'Timeline' and move the playhead over the selected clip. The selected clip gets a green wireframe which can be moved by drag&drop and resized by additionally holding down the shift key.
11. Masking & keying
You may attach a mask to each clip in your movie composition. FastCut uses the alpha channel (transparency channel) information of a TIFF image to determine which pixels of the clip to mask out. Choose 'Set…' in the 'Mask' section of the 'Inspector' to specify such a mask TIFF image. The 'Addional Material' package (separate download) contains a few sample masks.
Keying allows you to substitude a color in a video clip with a 100% transparent color. You can enable and set up keying in the 'Inspector'.
12. Titles
FastCut has an integrated ATSUI live title editor. Simply choose 'Add Title Clip…' from the 'Movie' menu. Then locate the insertion point for the title clip in the timeline with the pointing hand mouse cursor. Title clips are purple. When a new title clip is created FastCut automatically brings the 'Title Editor' window to the front where you may type in your text. The title editor build into FastCut uses the ATSUI text technology of Mac OS X. Font and style may be set individually for each letter.
Since version 2.1.2 FastCut has the ability to use still image clips which are bigger than the movie size determined in the 'Preferences' dialog without quality loss. To use this feature hold down the option key while dropping the image in the timeline. Take a look at the 'Big Title' project example which can be found in the 'Addional Material' package.
13. Export
Choose 'Export…' from the 'File' menu to export your movie. Most QuickTime formats are supported.
14. Misc
(last update: November 2, 2006)