Help a newby - How complicated is this baby?

Question

I've been working with iMovie08 and I'm not happy with the results of what I've produced. So I just picked up a copy of FInal Cut Express 4 at the Mac store today. I came home, installed the software and (boing), this is a tough bugger. So I went online and ordered Lisa Brenneis, book FCE4 Visual Quick Start Guide. I've used Visual Quick Start Guides with other programs and they're usually pretty easy.
So here's my question. Will a guide like this help a middle aged guy with limited patience dive into this software and become successful? Or should I spend $100 (half the price of the program) to take the FCE4 training at the Mac store?
I need to get a good grasp of the software ASAP. Any suggestions?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Rick ..... please accept my apologies for taking your thread off-topic (in middle-age the mind tends to wander).
To make up for it I have found this Basic Tutorial to get you started.
It was posted last April by Da Nam and I am taking the liberty of copying it here without his permission!
I hope you find it of some use ..........................
Da Nam: Absolute basic lesson I composed a while back for someone starting out with FCP so, deep breath,
"Leesten very carefully, I vill say zees only vonce!" * (Franglais accent|)
* 'Allo, 'Allo - old UK sitcom - I’m sure Ian R. Brown remembers! - apologies to any French speakers!
1) Set scratch disk -
i.e specify where your captured media and other files will be stored.
In the Final Cut Pro menu, go 'system settings' and select the 'scratch disks' tab. Click 'set' and set your scratch disk to your attatched external firewire hard drive (you do know it's not recommended to capture to your system drive, don't you?)
e.g '(external hard drive name) - users - documents - final cut pro documents'.
(If you don't have or choose not to use an external FW HD, the scratch disk will be set to '100GB (or however much space you have available) - Macintosh HD - users - documents - final cut pro documents.)
2) Choose easy set up
A quick way of choosing an err.... easy set up.
From the Final Cut Pro menu, choose ‘Easy Setup’ and choose ‘DV-NTSC’ (if that’s what you’re working with)
3) Go ‘file’ – ‘save as’. Name your project and choose where to save the project file.
This should be on your system drive (either documents/movies or wherever you prefer). The project file should be backed up frequently – it’s the brain of your project but as it contains no media – just pointers or references – it is small in size so back it up to a removable USB flash drive.
4) To transfer video from your camcorder to computer (called capturing) connect your camcorder to your Mac via a firewire cable and put it into ‘playback’ or ‘VCR’ mode. (This should be done before launching FCP.
Captured clips are filed into ‘bins’ in the ‘browser’ window. In anything than the smallest of projects, you will want to have a number of different bins for organizational purposes – e.g scene 1/scene 2 or location X / location Y or whatever you prefer.
To achieve this go ‘file’ – ‘new bin’ – a ‘bin 1’ icon will appear in the browser – name this, then select it (by clicking on it) and go ‘file’ – ‘set logging bin’ – a small clapperboard will appear next to the bin signifying that this is the bin to which you are capturing your clips.
Go ‘file’ – ‘Log and Capture’ – The ‘Log and Capture’ window opens and click on the ‘clip settings tab’ and set your ‘capture’ and ‘audio format’ to ‘audio and video’ and ‘stereo’ respectively (or whatever you choose).
In the ‘Logging’ tab, it’s important to name your ‘reel’ accurately to reflect the name of your source tape.
Then using the transport controls in the log and capture window to control your video camera, click the play icon to view the video.
Press the ‘i’ key to set the ‘in’ point of a clip and ‘the ‘o’ key to set the out point. Then click the ‘log clip’ button and fill in some info as required.
Repeat the last paragraph until you’ve got as many clips into the specified bin as you require.
At this moment, the clips will be ‘off-line’ (signified by a red strip thro’ the clips in the browser. To digitize these clips and place them on your hard drive, click the ‘batch’ button and in the resulting dialogue, choose ‘all items in logging bin’ or ‘off-line’ or ‘selected clip’ – whatever you want to digitize. Assuming you’ve left enough ‘pre-roll’ / ‘post roll’ at the beginning / end of the tape and you’ve got no timecode breaks in the tape, you should be able to relax and wait till the capture is complete.
After clicking OK or continue or whatever prompt you are given next, the files will be connected (the red bars magically disappearing) so hit save project and then either create a new logging bin and continue to log or close the log and capture window to start editing.
5) To start editing, double click a clip in the browser to load it into the viewer window, where you’ll set in and out points (to trim your clips prior to placing in the timeline), view the effects of filters/effects you might apply to the clips and change their properties.
With the clip loaded into the browser, click the ‘i’ and ‘o’ keys to set in and out points i.e where you want the clip to start and finish and then drag the clip from the viewer onto the timeline. Drag the playhead back and forth and use the transport controls to scrub through the clip and choose your in and out points. Hitting the ‘j’, ‘k’ and ‘l’ keys will play the clip back and forth at varying speeds depending upon how many times you press the keys.
To the top right of the timeline are 2 small boxes. Hover the cursor above each in turn and you’ll see one says ‘Linked selection’ and the other says ‘snapping’.
Toggle these on and off to select and deselect either option. Snapping enabled will accurately ‘butt’ up clips next to each other without a gap. Linked selection toggled off allows you to unlink the audio from the video.
The canvas window is where you can watch the results on the timeline.
To add an effect from the effects tab in the browser to a clip, drag an effect onto the clip in the timeline, double clip the click to load it into the viewer and adjust the values in the ‘filters’ tab in the viewer, monitoring the result in the canvas.
It’s recommended to monitor the editing process via some form of external monitor attatched to your Mac via the A/V output of your videocamera/dedicated deck to at the very least a domestic portable TV, if not a broadcast monitor. This will help with colour correction and ‘title safe’ areas for TV playback.
To output your finished project either use the ‘file’ – ‘print to video’ option and record back to tape in your camcorder or create a Quicktime movie (‘file’ – ‘export’ – quicktime movie’ (leave the ‘make movie self contained’ checkbox unchecked) to use in iDVD/DVD Studio Pro or use ‘Compressor’ to give you more compression options before authoring in DVDSP.
As I said, this is a beginners guide to get you going – there are many different and preferred ways of achieving this. That’s just the way I work so get a good book or 2 and work your way through the manuals.