Help talk:Movie Tutorial

Imovie vs Final Cut Pro

AppleMan1958 Feb 20, 2012 8:45 PM

1) iMovie does all rendering in one pass when you finish the project and share it. Final Cut Pro (FCP) does rendering in the background as you go. In practical terms, this means you can do a much longer movie in FCP. If your movies are typically longer then 30-45 minutes, consider FCP. A very simple movie might be able to be an hour on iMovie, but a movie with lots of complex effects might need to be shorter in iMovie. If you have a powerful Mac with lots of memory, you can push the limits on length with iMovie.

There is no limit to length in FCP (other than what your audience can stand).

2) Final Cut Pro supports multi-cam editing. If you use multiple cameras and audio sources, and would like to easily sync them up, switch from camera to camera, (up to 64 cameras), then FCP is the way to go. You can sync cameras automatically by matching the audio tracks, by using a traditional clapper board, by timecode, or by a marker that you set. iMovie is fine for single camera, and can do simple B-Roll or Cutaway.

3) Final Cut Pro uses ProRes 422, a professional intermediate codec. ProRes 422 is said to be able to go through 10 renders (each render adding a different edit or effect) without losing quality. iMovie uses Apple Intermediate Codec. There is only one render pass.

4) You can do simple color correction in iMovie. If you need to do complex color matching, matching color across different cameras, etc, you will be happier with Final Cut Pro.

5) iMovie allows simple keywording. FCP Pro allows keywords, as well as automatic keywords based on metadata, and smart collections.

6) If you typically work in a team environment, where multiple people are involved in the workflow, where you might need to do the final audio mix in another app, you really need FCP.

7) iMovie can edit video and audio to the nearest frame. Final Cut Pro, can also edit video to the nearest frame. But FCP can edit audio to the tenth of a frame. This can be important of you are trying to sync an audio recording to a separate video recording and make the two match up.

8) iMovie comes with a large number of pre-formatted titles and transitions. If you need to create your own unique titles, transitions, and motion graphics, you should consider FCP along with Apple's Motion app. You can create titles, graphics, transitions, etc. that are tightly integrated into FCP. But there is a significant learning curve.

9) iMovie is very intuitive, and you can quickly learn to make amazing movies very quickly. Final Cut Pro is a complex program but quite fast once you learn it. You should budget maybe $50 to $100 for training. If you get Motion, budget another $50 to $100 for training for that as well.