Using Final Cut for Satire

You all know Final Cut as an outstanding tool for creating professional looking videos suitable for airing on television, but did you also know that Final Cut is a prankster's best friend? The flexibility that Final Cut offers, along with its ease of use, means that any wacky visual prank you can think of can be produced lickety-split. If you've got some funny ideas --and good taste --you and your friends will be rolling in the aisles. You can share the laughs with the cozy little community on YouTube, too.

A few years ago I took a free Final Cut training taught by Dylan King at an Apple Store. Dylan is one of the most engaging and amusing trainers Apple ever hired. In the training I attended, Dylan used his own Final Cut projects to teach. I ended up learning far more than if he had used Apple's canned materials. Dylan's whim and whimsy got me thinking that Final Cut would be an ideal tool for satirical videos.

So the other day an idea popped into my head to create a panel discussion video where I was both the panel moderator and all four panelists. That's a piece of cake to produce in Final Cut. I called up my friend John Benson, a high school freshman who knows Final Cut inside and out. He and I work as creative partners.

John said he'd love to give this project a try and so I headed over to his place on a weekend at 10 am. John helped me set up the lighting and brainstorm the script for this project. His older sister, Maria, who has a flair for drama, pitched in with tips and suggestions.

We shot this video on my low-end Canon ZR500 digital camcorder -- which sells for about $230 these days. What made this project fun was that the script was delivered spontaneously -- unrehearsed. We were giggling throughout the entire production.

We finished shooting the video in less than an hour. John imported the video into Final Cut Express HD and he also fired up Photoshop. I didn't have to explain to John what I wanted in terms of design. John has impeccable taste in design. He's also so adept at Final Cut that he loves playing with the program. He loves creating something in Final Cut that he has never created before.

We broke for lunch around noon and John was back editing the project after lunch. While parts of the video were rending, John switched to Cheetah 3D, a 3D modeling and animation program he's teaching himself. By 2:30 pm John was finished with the edit. His mom and dad came over to take a look at the finished product. We all laughed.

I uploaded the video to YouTube and thanks to the keen eye of YouTube editor Citizen Steve, the video was chosen as a YouTube Editor's Choice.

Imagine my delight when a columnist for Time magazine, Richard Stickball, wrote an article using almost identical language to the words of George F. Won't, the caricature in this video. It's a case of life imitating art.

So if you've got a mischievous streak in you, if you believe the world could use a couple more spoofs to set it on the right track, Final Cut might be the right tool for you. Find yourself some youngster (or oldster) who knows the program inside and out. And lickety-split, your laughs become our laughs.

Phil Shapiro

The author is the former president of the Virginia Macintosh Users Group and recently presented on Google Sketchup for the National Capital Area Macintosh Users Group, in Washington DC, and served as a panelist on videoblogging for the 12th anniversary of DC Web Women. He blogs on Blogger can be reached at pshapiro@his.com

He uses Firefox as his preferred browser.

(This article has been distributed via the MUG Center's Newsletter Content Sharing List and may be freely reprinted in any Macintosh user group newsletter.)