What You Can Do With Final Cut Pro

Here are 6 things you didn’t know you could do with Final Cut Pro. Now, if you’re like me, you probably thought that Final Cut Pro is only for making simple videos. But there’s actually a lot more you’re able to do. So whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned editor, I promise you’ll find something you haven’t tried before.

Now I’m going to reveal these 6 things that are used on major Hollywood hits and one hidden feature that isn’t in any of the manuals. 

With these features not only will you be able to work faster and be better organized but the quality of your video is going to shoot through the roof.

1 – Edit Everything

Final Cut Pro is video editing software made by Apple and has been used to edit YouTube videos to Hollywood hits and everything in between. Big YouTubers like Casey Neistat, Emma Chamberlain and Logan Paul use Final Cut Pro to make their videos and get millions of views!

Will Smith’s Focus and Tina Fey’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot were made with Final Cut Pro and made over $170 million at the box office. Not bad! Can you imagine trying to edit a 2 hour film? In a bit I’ll show you how they used built in tools to stay organized and pull off a seemingly impossible task.

2 – Work faster and smarter

Hands down the best feature of Final Cut Pro is the magnetic timeline. When you rearrange, edit or trim your clips the timeline magnetically adjusts clips to make room. This speeds up editing and gets rid of gaps, pile ups and sync problems you see with other lame timelines.

The magnetic timeline sticks titles and audio to your clip so when it moves, they move with it and you don’t have to hunt for and reconnect lost titles and dialog.

By the way there’s this cool trick you can do with the magnetic timeline that isn’t in any manual. I’ll show you in just a bit but first I want to show you the next best feature: multicam editing.

You can use Final Cut Pro to edit footage from multicamera shoots or other synced footage in real time. For example, if you shot a live concert or a wedding with four different cameras, you can sync the footage from each camera angle into a single multicam clip and cut between the angles quickly.

I’ve got this synced footage from a WEDDING and I’m ready to edit it. First I’ll select my clips, right click, select New Multicam Clip, name it and press ok. Now I have this multicam clip I can add to my timeline and trim, move or rearrange like any clip. Next open the Angles viewer and play back the clip. As it plays I can click on any angle and Final Cut will cut to that angle in the timeline. So fast!

3 – Get organized

Final Cut has some great organization features to declutter your workflow. You can rate clips as Favorites by selecting them and pressing F and you can quickly see your favorites because they have a green line at the top. In the Browser, change your Clip Filtering to Favorites or press Control + F and now you can see all your favorite clips. 

If the clip makes you dry heave, you can press the delete key to Reject the disgusting clip and it will have a red line at the top. To hide your rejected clips, change your Clip Filtering to Hide Rejected or press control + H. To see your rejected clips, change your Clip Filtering to Rejected or press control + delete.

You can also add keywords to your clips and group them together in keyword collections so you can quickly find related videos. Select a clip and click on the keyword button, type your keyword and press return. Your clip will have a blue line at the top indicating that it has a keyword. To see your keyword groups, click on the arrow to the left of your event and then select your collection.

Once you’ve rated and organized your clips you can quickly put together a rough edit by selecting your favorite clips and adding them to your timeline by pressing E.

You can quickly arrange and organize your audio clips into lanes based on their audio type. For example, I have some dialogue, a voiceover, music and some sound effects in this project. Right now they’re all mixed together but if I click the index button, then Roles and then Show Audio Lanes all my audio clips will be organized by their type.

Remember the magnetic timeline? This next trick is one of my favorites and you won’t find it in any manuals. I have a song that’s about 3 minutes long but I only need 30 seconds. I love to edit songs in the timeline. Sure I could use Garageband, Logic or some other audio editing software but Final Cut is so fast when it comes to trimming down a song. Check it out. Using the magnetic timeline I can chop up this song, rearrange it and delete sections to make a shorter version. Next I’ll turn it into a compound clip and now I have a 30 second version of my song. So fast!

Are you ready to give Final Cut Pro a try? Has this video been helpful? If so, hit that like button so others can see this video. Thanks!

4 – Make every effect special

Final Cut Pro comes with over 300 built-in titles, effects and transitions. They’re so easy to use. Check out this cool 3D text template that comes with Final Cut. I just drag and drop it to my timeline and then I customize the text, font and color. If these get boring, don’t worry, I’ll show you how to get extra titles, effects and transitions in just a bit.

You can add pro audio effects with Final Cut’s built-in plugins and effects. You can reduce noise, correct pitch, add reverb, adjust EQs and a ton more. Just like the titles you drag and drop your effect onto your audio clip and then customize. Never sounded so sweet!

You can retime clips making them slower or faster. Let’s make a cinematic slow-motion effect. Select your clip, then click the Retime button, hover over Slow and select a speed. For a buttery smooth slow-mo use a clip that has at least 60 frames per second.

So you shot a video in low-light and now it has a bunch of noise and grain in it. No problem! Just add the Noise Reduction effect and customize. Now your clip looks clear.

One of the coolest features is the built-in motion tracker. You can stick an effect, graphic, video or title to any part of your video. Drag and drop your title into the viewer area and select what you want to track with this box. Click analyze and Final Cut will track the movement. So dope!

Final Cut can stabilize your shaky footage. Select your clip, enable Stabilization and let Final Cut do its thing. It’s already pretty stable but you can adjust these settings to get it just right. 

If the built-in titles, effects and transitions become stale you can extend Final Cut’s power with 3rd party plugins like the ones I make at Stupid Raisins. You can add callouts, logo animations, custom titles and so much more. One of our most popular plugins is Slice Pop. With this you can make animated splitscreens in just a couple clicks. If you want to check out my plugins, I put a link in the description for you.

5 – Perfect your pixels

Final Cut features some advanced color grading tools like color boards, color wheels and color curves to balance colors, match clips and get that cinematic look. Set your workspace to Color and Effects then select your clip, go to the Color Inspector and add color wheels. Use the scopes on the left and adjust the shadows, midtones and highlights to lock in that cinematic look. Just like the movies! 

6 – Share everywhere

Now that your video is finished it’s time to share it with the world! Or just your grandma for some instant validation. You can export your video for YouTube or the big screen with a variety of professional export formats. You can also export a bunch of projects or clips at the same time with batch sharing. Just select the projects you want to export in the browser and then share. Now you can take that coffee break.

As you can see Final Cut Pro is powerful video editing software and can do pretty much anything you throw at it. Now that you know what Final Cut can do, you may want to check out this video my friend Reggie made called How to set up Final Cut Pro. Click here to check it out.