What are Video Filters for Final Cut Pro 5?

Series Summary

Proficiency with Final Cut Pro is essential to any aspiring filmmaker. As one of the most widely used software programs in video and film editing, Apple 's Final Cut Pro can give a professional appearance to any film project, from basic digital video to HD material. Because it's relatively affordable and easy to use, Final Cut Pro has become extremely popular with broadcast stations and independent filmmakers. It offers a wealth of effects and functions, like dissolve, iris, distortion, and ripple, rolling, slipping, sliding and other editing functions, as well as color correction filters and audio filters.

In this free online tutorial you'll learn the basics of Final Cut Pro. This video series will focus on using the software’s various filters. Expert video editor CJ South will show you step-by-step how to apply single and multiple filters to a video clip, how to use the filter controls and adjust the parameters, and how to use the blur filter to enhance the visual quality of the video. Watch this free online tutorial with our others in this series and start working on your independent film today!

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is C.J. South representing expertvillage.com. In this clip I am going to introduce you to filters. Welcome to Volume 5 of the tutorial series. You have come half way and now it is time to talk about some of the really fun parts of Final Cut Pro. Editing is a really great process and it is a lot of fun and there is also a lot of fun to be had in talking about filters which is what we are going to cover in this series. Now filters allow you to modify and enhance clips in various ways. You can adjust the clips image quality, you can use color correction filters to adjust specific qualities of your clip such as color, brightness and contrast, saturation and even do some sharpness. Now these filters allow you to compensate from mistakes and exposure by adjusting the color backgrounds and exposure clips after shooting. So if you have been out there shooting for a while and you f it up a little bit, you can usually fix it up pretty well in post. When you hear people joke about oh, fix it and post, fix and post, that is basically what they are talking about. They f'd up the color most of the time. Now you can fine tune the clips in your editing sequence making sure the color and exposure of all the clips in a scene match as closely as possible. You can also use color correction in filters to stylize the clips in your project manipulating color and exposure to create specific effects. It is almost unlimited to what you can do. You can mix and match and create and you can just do anything, well I guess I can't say anything, but you are limited by your creativity. You can create visual effects. Certain filters such as the ripple and the fish eye filter they just create a bold, bold visual effect; very noticeable and very different. You can apply and combine these filters together if you want to create effect. Ranging from spinning your clip to simulated 3-D space to blurring to rippling and flipping clips. You can flip clips in the canvas and make them play backwards or go forward or do whatever you want to them. It is really up to you. You can also manipulate the transparency effects. You can use filters like the chroma tear or the garbage mat to create and manipulate the alpha channel. King filters create alpha channels based on blue, green, white or black areas in the image. So you could set up a green set for yourself. You could shoot yourself in front of a green colored screen and then you can get the effect of making you look like you are somewhere in Tahiti where really you are in Detroit in somebody's basement with a green screen behind you. "