Video Editing Books

I have been cutting on FCP now for 4 years and this has been my goto FCP reference guide book. This book definitely has a lot of good information in it, however I have found quite a few of the procedures I am looking for to not be outlined clear enough that you can read that section and accomplish what you had hoped to do on the first try. (quite a few procedures require a bit of trial-and-error) I have also found it difficult to look in the index for certain topics and been able to find what I was looking for easily. This book is better than the manual which comes with FCP, but if you are looking for clear, simple instructions that are easy to find and follow, I would look to another book.

It seems that the author does not understand what someone getting this book would want. To begin editing. I am not a rank amateur, but this book made me feel like one. The process of actually beginning did not start until chapter five - (page 159) and even then you don't really have a clue what's going on. Finally in Chapter 9 (page 281) you start Basic Editing. It was too complicated, but my thought was to start with Chapter 9 and then go back and put together what I might need to know. I found this book to be a disaster. Swimming through a lot of information I would only need if I were editing Star Wars X, instead of trying to organize a documentary with six hours of interviews.

Great great complete readible and easy to understand book. It's become my BIBLE along with the FCP manuals..but it's condensed all into one book where as FCP has five. This is good for the beginner as well as the advanced user.

I think that J. Ewing, who wrote the negative review, is on crack (metaphorically J.Ewing, not literally, chill - don't try to sue me for slander. Geez, you need to relax J. Ewing, you need to relax). This book is a definitive guide to Final Cut Pro 4 just as all of Lisa Brenneis' previous version have been for previous versions of FCP. Check out the rest of the amazing reviews for this book. Then, if you too are on crack, listen to J. Ewing. If not, buy this readable, helpful, insightful, and concise guide to FCP 4.

Beware, I have been editing on FCP4 for 12 months and this was the book I bought when I first started-I found it totally incomprehensible for a beginner. After a year of relatively sophisticated editing I still find the book virtually useless. Although packed with 700+ pages of writing, Lisa Brenneis somehow manages to turn simple concepts into mush. If you deliberately tried to write the most confusing description of each FCP operation it would be difficult to achieve Brenneis' level of mind-spinning prose. When she does not over-complicate an operation she glosses over the practical steps for implementation. We had a whole class abandon this book last fall. There could be a few very advanced users out there who actually fathom her illustrations and explanations but they would have no need for this monster. I suggest either the "Dummies" book or Apples training series.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I am a first time screenwriter and I read this book to get an Idea of whom and how to submit my script to. This book never addresses this at all. The majority of the book is discussing how impossible it is to get something read and or produced. When you finished reading this book you feel like the odds are so against you that it might be easier to finance and produce the movie yourself. Also, who the heck is Syd Field anyway? I went on IMDB and couldn't find a lick about him that is relative to the industry today. AVOID THIS BOOK. Negative vibes.

I really can't understand the reviewer from Hollywood who says Syd Field can't. He CAN! And luckily for us he DOES! Syd Field is a creative consultant of many years standing who works on more than one thousand scripts per year and knows the industry inside and out--better than anyone now writing books on screenwriting! In this book, Syd shares his wealth of knowledge with us about how Hollywood works. Exactly how it works. And you have to know if you want to make it in this tough, competitive field. I've learned more from Syd's books than from all the other books on screenwriting combined. You can't go wrong with Syd, believe me! Thanks!

Syd Field is absolutely, without a doubt the best! In this book, he lets us know why Hollywood chooses one script over another. After years of perfecting your craft, you really deserve to know what Syd does. I thought I knew, but boy was I wrong! Syd, however, showed me the way. This is the best book on selling a screenplay ever written. Buy Screenplay and learn your craft. Then buy Selling a Screenplay and you'll be well on your way to success. My students are.

This is a good, solid introduction to selling your screenplay and finding an agent. There's nothing much here that isn't found in a lot of other books, but someone starting will find this really useful.

At first, I thought this was a book about the nuts and bolts of selling your screenplay. Boy, was I delightfully mistaken. This book shows me how the process works that enables you to sell your screenplay. For that, it's absolutely wonderful!! I never knew how buyers buy and sellers sell. Now, that I understand the process, I can taylor my own scripts to the real world, not some phoney intelluctual garbage about what "the market is."

I have other books of Syd Field's and I find them useful, inspiring and knowledgeable. I've even bought his video and find it extremely valuable and encouraging.

I wanted to work with Final Cut Pro but found all the highly touted books STILL TO DIFFICULT to start out with. My experience was nothing more than being able to work with a simple package like iMovie. I was SAVED by this terrific book. As a teacher myself, I know you have to learn hands-on in a methodical manner; you don't need to learn the "whole ball of wax" the first time around (like other books somewhat force you to do). Michael Rubin knows this and has crafted the perfect book for those ready to take the next step. DON'T HESITATE TO BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU ARE READY FOR THE NEXT STEP! The included DVD gives you all the source material to work and practice with! BRILLIANT!!!

This book started off as a snore fest, but after the first chapter, the author really explains every beginning thing about FCP very nicely. The whole book is laid out with the exact steps you should take when learning the program for the first time.

It is a book for the absolute BEGINNER at Final Cut Pro, and that is who it was written for. Great book!

This book will teach you about editing--real editing--and not just how to move shots around with software. It doesn't take too much computer power to edit a project, whether its theatrical movie or your home videos. People have done it in Hollywood for 100 years with basically a razor blade and tape. I use Final Cut Pro to cut everything I ever need to cut. After 20 years of developing and using computers for "nonlinear" editing, I finally have software that is easy and suitably powerful. In many ways it is an easier tool than most "beginning level" consumer products.
My very simple methods are results-oriented. I do not want to turn everyone into a professional filmmaker, but I do want people to see how powerful and simple video literacy can be. Remember: this book will make you a fine editor and teach you the basics of FCP, but it is not a comprehensive book about FCP. There is a lot in there that I think is confusing for people starting out. This is a book about how to edit video using FCP, not how to use FCP to do everything ever. In just a few chapters, with the tutorials on the DVD, you'll be cutting any material you could have ever wanted to cut, like a pro (if that is your goal), or just as a comfortable, competant editor (ready to move to more encyclopedia-like volumes of information when you're hungry for it). This book is fun and direct. I look forward to your feedback.

Let me get the bad stuff out of the way first. Michael Rubin should fire his editor! There are things in this book that will drive you nuts when you try to follow the instructions. For example... he tells you to load files that are not there; he tells you to mark the edit when you hear the word "no," and the word "no" is never mentioned; or he starts explaining an application that he never instructed you to open or even how to open it. For a beginner who is depending on thoroughness and accuracy, this can be extremely frustrating.

Now for the good stuff, the book is laid out and explained in terms that make it easy for a beginner to follow. Lots of pictures and side notes are a big help. With the exception of the editing problems mentioned above, you will get a solid grip on the basics of FCP. When you finish this book, you will be able to do just about any project, short of professional editing.

The book has a lot of good points; however, before I completely finished the book (4/5ths of the way through), because of frustration, I bought the Apple learning series and will use that as my reference.

Again, considering all you will learn from this book, it's not a bad investment, but just not the best.

This book creates more problems for the student that it is supposed to resolve.

Okay in FCP your faced with with a very intricate and complex program, so you expect the information given to be accurate and helpful?

Yes so did I. Examples abound of inaccuracies:

- Pg 16 "Loading in the Video Files" from the DVD, "Locate the folder labeled 'Rubins's tutorial Files'" You can't because it doesn't exist, but expect to waste some time trying to find it!!

- Editing/Insert Page 65 "..stop just after Chris finishes his line with the word no" He never says "no", but that cost me about two hours of looking through the DVD, previous clips and the script, because the book can't be wrong you keep looking!

- "Review.." Page 83 "compare your edits to mine" His "edit is in the tutorial folder", it's not!!! That doesn't exist, it is in the FCP Project Files v3.0 another waste of time searching. But wait there's more!! Click on the file and get messages that the files went off line, the media is off line, they are not there, so you can't get them to make the comparison. Nor can you get him by e-mail to find out what is wrong.

Bad enough huh! No I'm afraid not, page 83 "we'll be using it, [the missing file], as the starting place for the next chapter" So that kind of rules out any lingering chance of DVD/book/student interactivity in the rest of the book!!!!

Considering that the book is supposed to be for beginners, who generally follow instructions word for word and step by step, until familiarity allows them the opportunity to experiment. This book because of it's constant inaccuracies and presumptions retards ones development and delays the familiarity factor. All the way up until page 83 of the 270 page book, when it stops being interactive and goes back on the shelf. Wonder what was in last two thirds of the book?

Good luck if you get it!!1

(...) If you're interested in shooting and editing fictional stories using iMovie, Smith's book is very useful--even though it's outdated (it covers iMovie1, not 2). What I appreciated about the book is that Smith takes digital editing seriously. He explains, somewhat, the art of it, which is evident in both the book and the attached DVD.

This book, however, would be a waste of money for those seeking to shoot home, small business, or community outreach videos. If you're shooting and editing for these reasons, I highly recommend David Pogue's "iMovie 2," Rory O'Neill and Eden Muir's "Movie Making with iMovie," or Todd Stauffer's iMovie 2 for Dummies"--the latter includes a good CD Rom with Quicktime movie examples of the strategies and techniques explained in Stauffer's book. Stauffer also goes into advance video editing techniques not clearly explained in Neill or Smith's book.(...)

This is one of the worst 'how to' books that I have ever read. I bought it on the assumption that it would take me a little further than the David Pogue's "Missing Manual" (which is an excellent book). However, it most certainly does not, in fact it is badly written, full or errors, and actually has some genuinely dubious advice regarding technique. I have no idea why the people that gave this book a good review did so. I can only assume that they are friends of the author, and didn't actually read the book.

This book should not be on the market in its present error-filled state. Apparently the other reviewers who rate it so highly are looking at the book's pretty pictures. They surely have not tried to use the book as a new learner, as the book intends.

The book fails utterly as a tutorial. It has numerous factual errors, mismatches between book and actual experience, misleading language, etc. etc.

This book needs an overall edit in the worst way. At the very least someone should have gone through the tutorials (to make sure they worked!) before putting them into print.

The file for the very first lesson has a different name on the CD than the one given for it in the book, and does not start up with images already imported, as it should. And the web site they refer you to for enhanced coverage is a complete bust.

But that's just the start of your troubles if you're trying to use this book to learn iMovie. Go for David Pogue's Missing Manual. Infinitely superior, and half the price.

All those 'how to edit video' books out there are great, but they all start out assuming you have video! Scott Smith takes you by the hand with a DVD full of pre-shot footage, so you can test out iMovie and use it to tell real stories, not just your cousin's wedding video. Unlike most books that tell you to buy lots of expensive equipment, he tells you how to create real mini-movies on a budget, complete with special effects, like recording bacon frying to get a 'sizzling in the sun' sound! This book is visually appealing and approachable. I learned a lot from it.

I'm sure you've seen the Apple TV commercials: make digital home movies, including professional-standard fades, cuts and credits, on your iMac DV! Enticed by these dramatic TV commercials, I bought an iMac DV, but of course there was no iMovie instruction manual included. One of the only laments I have about Apple these days is the lack of documentation and instruction books included with their new computers (and their online help features are frequently confusing, anemic, and infuriating to use), but luckily a whole new range of books are being published to cope with this lack. This is one of the first iMovie instruction manuals published, and though I can't make any comparisons yet with the many that will likely follow, this is a great instruction and idea manual. This largish-format paperback (9 x 9 inches) takes you step-by-step through planning your iMovie, storyboarding, filming on your digital camera, editing, scoring, and adding sound and credits. Lots of color illustrations show you examples as well as screen-shot menus that make the process clear and easy-to-follow. There's an excellent general theory section on storytelling on film, many examples of how to make your shots more dramatic, how to get around the basic limitations of shooting digitally or showing your iMovies on a computer screen, troubleshooting, things to avoid, and much more. Among the great tips it offered that I didn't know and *needed* to know is how to convert Quicktime files into iMovie format. Most important, this book contains a DVD-ROM with all the files you need for three separate project exercises in editing, scoring, adding sound and credits. Most "exercises" provided with computer manuals are usually pretty lame, but *not* these...they're entertaining, well-shot short-short film segments (you put `em together into three films), with a tongue-in-cheek quality and twist endings that make them fun to work on, *not* laborious. So, in short, this a great introduction and beginner's manual to a user-friendly but very detailed Macintosh program in specific and novice filmmaking in general. While the page count (138 pages) may seem anemic for $39.95, the large amount of color and the DVD-ROM featuring imaginative projects to use as exercises and source material go a long way to making this a good buy. I'm eagerly awaiting a competing book: David Pogue's "iMovie: The Missing Manual" (ISBN 1565928598)--Pogue is one of the recognized experts on all things Mac and *always* entertaining to read--but *this* book is a great way to start out making your own iMovies. Narration by Jeff Goldblum not included.

I didn't notice that this book was two years old when I ordered it to learn about DV camcorders.

Sadly, there's almost nothing in the book about DVD Camcorders -- which I bought before I found that there were more desirable formats out there. It mentions Adobe Premiere, but spends most of its time on other video software products.

Mac users may like this book a lot as it devotes several chapters to Mac movie making -- which is not what I do.

The "Dummies" book on the subject is more current -- I bought it at the same time and started reading it after I finished this one -- and I have learned more from half of the Dummies book than this entire volume.

In summary: it needs updating.

...beginners and intermediates.

I found this book very useful, full of technical details and practical information. It covers items from preparing your computer to preproduction (story boards, etc.), editing, using slideshows, sound, titling, and post-production. Information about the technical qualities of digital video cameras was also very helpful.

After a year, this book may be out of date, but for right now, I think it will help beginners and intermediates. I found it more useful than Ed Gaskell's The Complete Guide to Digital Video, because Johnson et al. were more practical and direct.

If you want to learn the basics, and beyond, of filming, editing and rendering your video, home or semi-professional, buy this book. The guys, mostly Dave Johnson, that put this together write in a style and format that is fun, entertaining, and easy for a novice to understand. They have done an excellent job of producing a book that carries you step by step through the wonderful world of videography. I read a lot of books to gain knowledge about different subjects and I wish everyone wrote the way these guys do. Their title explains exactly what you can expect. Buy it!

More fluff than content and they are using a product that is popular I guess but hardly video editing standard. If you know anything about digital video you don't need this. If you are a complete newbie and using Pinnacle products, I recommend reading your manual before you buy this.

There are so many better choices. Much of the information is sketchy, redundant, or just wrong. Steer clear of this one.

At last, a book that is understandable, compelling and
practical! As a teacher of film at USC, I found this
book enormously helpful. I will make it required reading
for my students.

This book is so much fun! I am now totally hooked on digital cameras! I've been looking for help with digital photography and this book is the best I've seen---informative, well-written, great photos. If you aren't already interested in digital cameras, you will be after you read this book.

Book Review: Making Movies, Photos, Music and DVDs on Your Mac
Chris Seibold
Columnist/Cartoonist

Making Movies, Photos, Music and DVDs on Your Mac
By Jesse Feiler
Publisher: McGraw Hill/ Osborne
SBN: 0072225548
...

Imagine for a moment that you have a spiffy new iMac and further suppose that you want to use it to make all kinds of multimedia. Heck if you have a newish Mac you know it comes pre loaded with iTunes for music, iPhoto for pictures, iMovie for making your own movies and iDVD for cramming that newly made movie on a DVD disc. Thatýs a lot of programs to take in all at once and if you have a new Mac you know that the manuals are nonexistent. So are you left running out to buy a book for each program? Maybe not, perhaps Jesse Feilerýs book "Making Movies, Photos, Music and DVDs on Your Mac" can answer your specific needs for a fraction of the price of four individual tomes and with a good deal more depth than an all-encompassing Mac reference.

The first problem with the "Making Movies, Photos, Music and DVDs on Your Mac" is the title. It might trick you. Jesse Feilerýs book is not about making music or photos on your Mac, itýs about organizing and manipulating said multimedia. I suppose that objection is a minor quibble, after all it is the stuff between the covers that counts. "Making Movies, Photos, Music and DVDs on Your Mac", from now on referred to as MMPMD, starts out fairly basic. On page five Jesse Feiler covers the importance of "thinking digital" noting that today's computers are digital. Computers (the kind Jesse is thinking of) have been digital since 1937 but other media has been heading steadily towards the land of 1 and 0ýs for the last few years. The progression of media to the digital realm is what makes the Mac a digital hub and what makes MMPMD worth reading as long as you ignore anything that doesnýt pertain directly to computers or digital equipment.

Just what am I talking about? An example resides on page 21 where Jesse Feiler is chatting about visual perception. Sure this topic may seem a bit extraneous to some (and I would agree) but if youýre going to jam this kind of information in you should at least get it right. After noting that you need your brain to see (who knew?) we are treated to the following:

"Light, like all other electromagnetic radiation, consists of waves. All electromagnetic waves behave in the same way. This is why sound, light, infrared, X-rays, and gamma rays all exhibit similar behavior"

This is not some quibble about wave/photon duality or some other obscure quantum mechanical complaint my beef is a bit more basic: Just when did sound become an electromagnetic wave? Itýs been a couple of years since my class in classical mechanics but way back in ý97 science was pretty sure that sound waves were mechanical.

Once we get the first chapter out of the way we can begin to actually eye the book for the intended purpose of using our Mac to the fullest in the increasingly digital world. So how do the remaining 24 chapters hold up? Generally pretty well, the prose is easily understandable and the book is full of useful iMovie tips I havenýt seen elsewhere. The iPhoto information is quite thorough and useful and the iTunes chapters are more than passable. The last few chapters are "case studies" which are fairly useful to help the reader realize just what the "hub" can do.

While mostly solid (say 85%) MMPMD also has more than itýs fair share of "why the hell is this here?" spots where you are left wondering what the point was of the last few pages. A prime example of this can be found in the chapter on Applescript. The reader is treated to a couple pages full of Applescript terms and lines of Applescript code but not enough info to write a useful Applescript. The point of the chapter seems to involve a wish to get the reader to learn Applescript elsewhere and noting that there are quite a few useful downloadable scripts. My question remains: why did I wade through all that Applescript stuff just to find out I need to get a different book to actually write an Applescript?

Bottom Line: When MMPMD is going well itýs full of tricks and solid tips. When MMPMD is going bad it can be quite a time waster. My advice to those who buy this book: Make frequent use of the index to avoid the tangential information scattered throughout MMPMD.

MacMice Rating: 2 out of 5

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris Seibold

Now in an updated and expanded third edition, The Technique Of Film And Video Editing: History, Theory, And Practice by Ken Dancyger (Professor of Film and Television, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University) provides a thoroughly "reader friendly" introduction and survey of proven editing techniques and how those techniques influence the editing process, as well as presenting the history, theory, and aesthetics of editing in film and video. Nicely organized into three major sections (History of Film Editing; Editing for the Genre); and Principles of Editing), The Technique Of Film And Video Editing is enhanced with the inclusion of "Cutting Room Procedures", a filmography, a glossary, a selected bibliography for further study, and a comprehensive index. No film school or academic library film/video production instructional collection can be considered complete without the inclusion of The Technique Of Film And Video Editing as a core reference. Also very highly recommended for film students and aspiring film makers from Focal Press is Blain Brown's Cinematography: Image Making For Cinematographers, Directors, And Videographers (02-40805003, $44.99).

film, video, non-linear, linear - it's all pictures and sound. This book was everything i was looking for. It's not an explanation of how to edit. It's about how to think, how to dig deep inside your feelings and appy those feelings to the work you do. Forget the technicalities, forget the jargon, this is about asking yourself the question - what do i want the viewer to feel? It inspires you to think beyond what you know. I have been editing for a number of years - i am a better editor after reading this book.

This book will give you a general history of editing. Also you will find in "Editing for the genre" section examples of different film editing "styles" for different genres. Honestly the principles of editing section is very weak. Also the non linear editing topic is not covered in depth. The name can be confusing for some people: This book is NOT about the technique and There is almost nothing on "video" in it. It is about creative and aesthetical sides of editing with examples from well known directors like Kubrick, Hitchcock etc.

I just read a chapter from this book on DMN. Maybe the author has something interesting to say or maybe some new insights - I'll never know. The writing is so poor that each sentence needs to be dissected to be understood.

"In the world of the music video, real place is far less important. In fact, they are not as important as references to other media and other forms, to the landscapes of science fiction, and to the horror film." Huh? I'm guessing that "they" means "real place" and therefore should been "it is not as important..." But I am not sure that is what he meant. I've seen bad writing like this in user forums but never in a book. Did he have an editor?

I do have a book to recommend, though for the author, The Elements of Style. When you master that, try again but this time with an editor.

Yes, it is old technology, it is history but everyone still uses video tape. It is amazing how many adobe, final cut and avid editors know nothing about control track, ins and outs and don't even know how to read an EDL. They're all good until tape is involved.
I agree the technology is old but much of the information is still being used. I know more than one filmmaker who could have used the production advice, including recording room tone.

This book offers only general information. It's a good start to get information about concepts used in video editing but is far from offering you in depth information. Although I found some good info, I was relatively disappointed (3 stars), but maybe I had wrong expectations.

Now in a revised and completely updated fourth edition, Video Editing: A Postproduction Primer by Steen E. Browne (Senior Online Editor, New Wave Entertainment) is a very direct and straightforward "how-to" manual of the basics and the nuances of properly editing videotape. Individual chapters address creating video effects, random-access editing, audio postproduction, and much more, in this comprehensive, strongly recommended guide filled from cover to cover with tips, tricks, and techniques appropriate for video editors of all experience and skill levels.

I like to find in the book the material which I expect from its title. I would've rated this book much higher if it were called "History of video editing", which is pretty much what it is about. The fourth edition of this book, published in 2002, is heavily based on its earlier editions, which date back to the early 1990s or late 1980s. The majority of illustrations depict equipment which was used back in the 1970s-1980s. The technical editing tools presented by the author look like museum items compared to the modern computer-based editing tools, and the manuals of these programs would tell much more about digital editing than this book. The old material is occasionally updated by references to high definition TV standards and modern video tape formats, which are not clearly separated from the old ones, and it is not even clear which of 10+ standards used in consumer-level camcorders and in professional equipment. Some ideas on how to shoot videos to avoid common mistakes are useful, but again it is just a short chapter. To make things worse, the book contains a lot of practically useless, for most people, information such as structure of tracks on 2-inch-wide video tape used in the first videorecorder introduced in 1956, or (more modern example) position of audio and video tracks on VHS tapes. A consumer like I am can edit home videos without any of this knowledge.

It was interesting to learn when the first videotape recorder was invented and see a picture of that device and its designers, including Ray Dolby who later founded Dolby Labs. But you know, I expected to find in this book much more up-to-date and much more practical things, judging by its title and its 2002 (for the 4th edition) publication date. It took me 20 minutes to read the book (or whaever I thought was useful) from the beginning to the end.

I suppose, the 1996 year edition depicted at the top of this page is even more outdated.

My opinion and advice: Don't waste you money on it.

Unfortunatly I bought this book "blind" after just slightly
browsing the previewpages. Having spent a night with it now I am truly dissapointed. Apparently the authors are "recording artists" or something - they certainly are not Adobe-experts that have worked their way through version after version of AP and user feedback.

Several of the 50 techniques are just using filters like the distortionfilter or crazy overuse of colorfilters to get "a creative look" or adding fire-effects.

The worst is that most examples are uninspiring, or something that would make your production look really cheesy.

The video on the CD is 10fps lousy footage.

"Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Premiere 6.5 in 24 Hours" has so much more informative content, and professionalism, that its hard to believe. It's two chapters on tips and tricks has more info.

Please, please pick anything else - or even browse the web for better tutorials.

If you live in Oslo, Norway I will give this book away for free to the first interested - or basically throwing it away.

I love this book! It's my #1 reference for creating quick, exciting video effects. All the "recipe" work has been done for me, so I don't have to interrupt the creative flow to read a boring manual in order to find out how to apply flashy techniques. I recommend this to anyone, especially beginners!

Excellent book for beginner. I was able to create really slick video effects using the techniqes in this book, without having to read the manual! great shortcuts, excellent tips, fast results. Highly recommended...A+++

You want a book that really packs in some substance? If so, this book is for you. This author didn't waste time on stuff you already know. Rather, he clearly knows Premiere 6.5 and knows all of the inside info Adobe won't tell you. This book offers a concise primer of video editing terms and technology, giving us just the info we need to produce great movies for the Web or video. I highly recommend buying this book first, because you probably won't need any of the others.

If you are just entering the digital video world, and you don't know what a codec is, you need this book. The author explains everything and creates a foundation to build the concepts of video editing.

If you're already familiar with digital video, and you just want to know where all the buttons are in Premiere, simply to skip to the chapter on Video Editing and you're there.

The first half of the book drones on a bit about every possible preference and setting. This gets a bit dry. Be prepared to read the book twice, as much of the terms you won't understand until you experiment. Some things were glazed over e.g. I found 3-point editing to be an amazing feature.

Like other books I've read, the author really pushes single-track editing. I think single-track editing may be easier to explain, but A/B editing is much easier to visualize and work with. If you are familiar with other Adobe products, such as Photoshop, A/B editing works just like blending layers of a photograph.

This book covers version 6 as well as 6.5 - there's not a big difference between the two, unless you are really big on 'Titles'. There is a lot of great information getting your feet wet as a small-time movie producer - patents, royalties, and where to go for more information. I was left with the ability to do just about everything I wanted to do with my movies, but was left with some questions. This will not be the only book you buy on Premiere, but it should probably be the first.

I'm a 'dummie' when it comes to PremierPro, and I found this book hopeless. It is long on chatty asides and advice, and gets you lost in all sorts of tangents. I JUST WANT TO LEARN HOW TO EDIT!! My suggestion (beyond a new author) is to restructure the book so that it works through basic tutorials first and then more advanced editing later in the book. As it is now structured, all 'editing' info gets lumped into one chapter, from basic to advanced, and you can easily lose track of your objective as a student. Even then, basic questions are hard to find. Like 'how do I break up a long clip that I've uploaded into smaller clip files'? I also found the index sucks. Want to find out about the 'trim' window? Looking for info on 'cutting'? Want to know how to turn on/off the timeline? Good luck on all these. In the end I found the Adobe online tutorials were far more clear and to the point. Don't waste your money on this one. PremierPro is complex, and this book confuses and frustrates more than it helps. I suspect it wasn't really written with dummies like me in mind: check out the mind boggling chapter on color correction...