Shooting
Editing
Final Cut Pro
Equipment
Esoterica
There are an awful lot of things you should know about shooting, but in the moment you won't remember any of them. Focus, exposure and composition need to be intuitive, so you don't think about them, and can instead attend to the content of what you are filming.
Because you can see what you are doing on a monitor, it is easy to play with focus and exposure and get a feeling for how they work on your camera. I find most consumer/prosumer cameras record a bit hot for my tastes, and often lower the exposure a little bit. Auto focus has gotten pretty good, but still breathes in low light and often seeks out the background for focus instead of the subject. The fold out LCD screens are great for composition, but woefully inadequate for judging exposure and focus.
I wrote a piece about camera vocabulary that covers basic shots and moves.
It is not that we all love Final Cut Pro so much. At a critical juncture, when entry level non-linear editing systems cost $50,000+, Apple introduced a $2000 machine on which Firewire and Quicktime video actually worked with $1000 Final Cut Pro software. I had a Mac G3 and a loaded PC sitting side by side. Final Cut and the Mac took about 15 minutes to get working, and after three weeks, we all gave up trying to make the PC and Premiere work. Now Walter Murch, who has the best publicist of any editor who ever lived, has cut a real Hollywood film on Final Cut Pro, and Apple rides a juggernaut through all levels of the industry.
It is a great program, now in version 4.5, easy to use right out of the box, and with more tricks and special features than bus load of magicians.
I'd have been up a creek with Final Cut Pro, (and it's companions programs DVD Studio Pro, Motion, Compressor, etc,) many times without the help of the Los Angeles FCP Users Group. They have monthly meetings where you can learn about the latest developments, see undocumented tricks performed, and share members works in progress. They also have a website with scores of great articles, FCP and DVDSP forums where you can ask questions about problems you are experiencing, and a store with discounted software.
These sites are also valuable for solving FCP problems.
2-Pop.com
Final Cut Forum
Apple Software Support
I haven't gotten to this part yet, but John Beale's USING THE DCR-TRV900 Camcorder is an essential reference for serious users of this camera. It links to many other sources and includes references to cameras that are newer than th eDCR-900 (such as the VX-2000 and the DCR-950)..
formats
video to film
Blue Screen
Chroma key is a video standby for putting a figure in front a background from another time and place (like the weatherman in front of the computer weather map). By photographing a foreground object against an intense blue (green, or orange) background, the blue color can be made transparent so another layer of video shows through in its place. This can be done live, in analog post, or in a computer environment like FCP. It is a blast. Here's a page on bluecreen efx work in DV.
16:9
Some cameras record a letter boxed image, which is no problem (you just treat it as 4:3 video and it displays in the browser and comes out on tape as letter box-- QED). Better cameras squeeze a 16:9 image into 4:3 so that the video is distorted unless played on a monitor that unsqeezes it to 16:9. This is also the case with footage shot 4:3 with an anomorphic lens attachment. When setting up clip and sequence preferences in FCP, you can check 16:9 so that it will be displayed unsqueezed on the computer monitor. It will still be squeezed on NTSC output. Apple has 40 articles about wide screen and FCP- go to the link and put 16:9 in teh search box. John Beale's site also has useful information, links, and suggestions for working with widescreen.
I found a quick way of working with squeezed images and outputting them to tape in leterbox.
1--Capture clips at 4:3 with 16:9 box checked.
2-- When you have them edited into the time line, select all the 16:9 clips and Apply Motion>Aspect Ratio> -33.3
3-- Render them and they will play letter boxed on the NTSC screen and tape.
You can also save the sequence before changing the aspect ratio and output it squeezed so you have a tape that will play on wide screen monitors and projectors. The rendered one will play on standard monitors.
If you are mixing squeezed and regular 4:3 footage in the same sequence, then only change the the squeezed portions.