Newbie filmmaker- IS i-book with FCPExp. a good start?

F

Filmfanatic

Active member
My situation:

I've got a DVX100A. I've been shooting only 24p and using the 'auto button' a lot.
I have only been doing test footage indoor and out. I know that using the 'auto' is a bit lame and not the best way to learn the camera but I just want to get going and get good images and make something.

I have a PC with Vegas that I don't get the hang of partly because I don't like it and also because I'm new to all areas of filmmaking.

The main reason I want to change is I think I might not enjoy the editing process. If I have to do it I may as well find the easiest most user friendfy way. I'm starting to feel that writing the script, shooting and working with actors is what I enjoy.

I want to get a Mac laptop with FCP Express to make short films mostly about 10 to 30 min. long. A close friend (also making short films) switched from PC to Mac and FCP EXp. and loves it. He is a much more savvy computer user than I am.
He says he finds FCP & Mac much easier than PC/ Vegas.



My questions:

1) Is the i-Book 15"w/super drive/FCP Express a good laptop/editor combination for a beginner to make short films?

2) I was going to upgrade the ram to 768. Is that enough again for short films?

3) How big external hard drive should I get?

4) If I can get the extra cash (aprox.$800) for a Powerbook should I got one or is not necessary?

5) Is the full FCP vs Express something I should considert this stage?

6) Does the DVX & 24p work well with FCP Exp.?

Thanks very much for any input.
 
work w/ your edit suit that u already have, save up for a powerbook 15' or 17. that way, you will have a real machine on your hands.
 
Thanks Arron. I know the 15" Powerbook would be ideal.
I feel the 17" is just too big. It defeats the portability factor that is very important to me.
 
A few notes:
Unless it's changed recently Express doesn't support 24fps sequence but since you've shot in 24p (not 24pa) you can just edit in normal video timeline. It will still have the look of 24fps.

PowerBook is certainly more powerful than an iBook. iBook is nice but the PowerBook will probably keep you happer longer, especially if you're doing heavy work on it.
Try to get with largest internal drive and best graphics display. That said you can certainly edit films on the iBook. My daughter did a number of shorts for her college film classes on an iBook.

For simple editing Express is probably ok. If you don't have much experience editing you can actually use iMovie (comes on all Macs), even with 24p. It doesn't have all the bells and whisltes but will let you start thinking about the actual editing process without getting bogged down in the technique.

Ram- Get at 768 to 1 MB minimum.

Drive - remember an external firewire drive isn't necessarily recommended. It will work but usually better to store non-current projects. If you get a PowerBook wit a PC slot you might want to consider getting a FireWire buscard so you can cleanly capture to your external drive. Not required but better performance and reduced possible dropped frames.
Size is dependent on how much you're shooting and how long you need to hold on to it. 100-250GB would be fine.
 
Very helpful info Scott. You reminded me of another question. I've read from many PB owners at Cnet.com that while they love the PB the battery life is very bad (aprox 2hours) while for some reason the I-books have good battery life. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
 
Filmfanatic said:
Thanks Arron. I know the 15" Powerbook would be ideal.
I feel the 17" is just too big. It defeats the portability factor that is very important to me.
Click to expand...


I am somewhat of a newbie and have a PowerBook 17" rev A 1ghz 1.5GB RAM, I tried to use my friends 15" and I just didn't have enough space to work with. I would say skip FCE and start with FCP. It was worth the little bit of pain learning FCP 4.5 but now I have a good enough knowlege that I am glad I didn't start out with FCE as I wanted to do. One thing I think was invaluable was using an NTSC monitor to preview my work. My desk is near my TV so a quick hook up via S-Video saved me from fixing titles that were too wide and footage that looked fine on the laptop but was the wrong color on the TV. Title safe aned color correction ended up being my favorite tools. Hope my words helped out. Though you can use external drives for storage it is not recommended I have not had total sucess with my external but I bought a cheap one and it is hooked to my 400 port, I will buy an 800 port firewire drive next time. Hitachi drives seem to work best so I have heard. I use a cheap Western Digital. I will never buy that brand again.
 
one thing i'd think about doing is getting the 12" powerbook. cause it's cheaper and the most mobile of the bunch. then, if you have a primary place where you are doing most of your editing, get a cheap 17 or 19" monitor at circuit city or whatever and edit in style with a dual monitor setup. use the 2 monitor setup for most of your editing, and make do with the smaller lcd if you really have to edit on the road once in a while. now if you really need to do all of your editing on the go, then 15" makes more sense.

i agree with you about the 17" by the way. my dad has one and it never leaves the house.

on express and 24p, i'm 99% certain that the new version can handle it, since it is now "final cut express hd." since some of the hd flavors are 24p, i'm sure they can also support 24p in standard def. it should be easy enough to find out with a trip to apple's site.

one big argument for final cut pro: i've been looking into this alot lately, and express deals with timecode in a much more wussy/limited way. because you're working with a laptop, and especially cause you're talking about storing video on the internal drive, you should consider digitizing your footage in "offline rt" which is lower resolution and much smaller files than dv. basically you capture everything this way and use it to edit. then when you're nearly done editing, you go back and re-capture at full dv quality. this way you don't hog up your hard drive with huge video files that you're not even using. this is how most video is edited in the real world, with the huge, uncompressed high definition stuff getting "onlined" toward the end of editing, after most of the major editing decisions have been made . i'm not sure about express, but i really doubt that it lets you work with this offline/online style of editing since this is all based on final cut reading the timecode from your tape so it knows what stuff to re-capture when it's time. as i said, express seems to have a much lamer approach to handling timecode than pro.

anyhow, best of luck.
 
Discs of Tron-
I like the deductive reasoning (I'm serious...it was a valiant effort) but unfortunatley the HD in FCEHD only stands for HDV in the 29.97 flavor. So to put it simply FCEHD can deal with DVX100a: 60i, 30p, and 24pN, regular video camera - 60 i, HDV-720 and 1080 60i and 30p.
FCP can handle just about anything you throw at it.
Looking back this post might be a little confusing. Let me know if there's anything I should clear up.
Peace,

-Harry
 
i guess that settles it then. pro it is. but hey, maybe you're a student. at educational pricing, pro was $300 last i checked. they seem to be pushing the fcp studio bundle now, but i'm sure you can still get just final cut at ed pricing. (if you're a student or a teacher.)

and i just checked and found out that pro hd has offline rt settings for 24, so you'd be cool with the offline/online setup i described above.
 
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