Last Friday, Sandy Novak, Web & Digital Media Associate Professor, invited Apple representatives Steve and Tim to speak with Beacon College students about Final Cut Pro. About half a dozen students, most of them Web & Digital Media majors, showed up for this presentation.
Steve began by providing the group with an overview of his professional background, attending video school and working as a video editor in Boston before starting his career with Apple. He also has a personal connection to Leesburg; his grandparents lived in the area for 40 years, and he has fond memories of visiting every summer. Now he travels all over the world listening to what customers want to see with Apple software and bringing those ideas back to the software engineers.
This group of students is well aware of the popularity of video, and Steve reiterated this by using a stat- 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. He explained that creating video has never been easier, and amateurs can now excel in this field even with little money and formal education in the area, provided they are willing to dedicate themselves to the craft and have the discipline to shoot a lot of video and edit it carefully.
Steve used the example of the Tour de France videos to illustrate the power, capabilities, and ease of using Final Cut Pro. For the course of the 21 day race, video editors must create a half hour show daily, airing it within an hour of the end of the day’s race. The editors were not only able to meet this deadline, editing down hours of footage, they were also able to edit as the show progressed live.
With software such as Final Cut Pro and the use of inexpensive video equipment, even including an iPhone, Steve assured students that the ability is there to create powerful videos. He told students this point in time provides an “exciting opportunity to make really cool videos with special effects” and the emphasis should be on “just telling the story.” He encouraged students to try out different things and just experiment.
Students were given an opportunity to ask questions and express their own thoughts and ideas about the video revolution and what part they would like to have in it. It was clear that this group of Web & Digital Media majors are well aware of just how much opportunity there is out there for them, and the ideas are flowing for what role they could have and how they could achieve it.
~ Gretchen Dreimiller