When you’ve got a 30 second spot, you can’t wait too long for anything to happen. You have to hope that the shots communicate enough for you that you don’t have to leave them up too long.

—James Haygood on editing commercials

With practice, you'll cut by feel.

Until then, editing is cutting out the "bad" bits.

—Walter Murch
In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing

Video editing and post-production
with Final Cut

Related pages: video terminology and embedding web video and Final Cut

The main components of the Final Cut Express user interface are:

  1. Browser bins and effects
  2. Viewer
  3. Canvas
  4. Timeline
  5. Editing tool palette (not labeled; small area to right of timeline)
  6. Audio meters (not labeled; small area to right of timeline)

To get back to the default user interface, select Window menu > Arrange > Standard.