Will I be able to edit?

Question

Hi. I am a 17 years old boy and am going to study cinema. I will buy a DV camcorder in some months and I need to know if I'll be able to edit with my eMac.
It's an 1,25GHz eMac with 768MB of RAM (and I'll buy a 250GB LaCie external HD).
Some weeks ago, a friend came and installed the FCE HD because we wanted to edit some videos (nothing pro). It worked fine, but we were only editing a 30-second video, so maybe there's a huge difference if I try to edit more than 20min...
Could you tell me how would it work?
Thanks
Rodrigo

Answer 1

Hi Rodrigo.
It should be fine.
If you look at my setup (at the bottom of this post) you will see that my equipment is almost identical to yours.
Also if you go back 4 to 5 years to when FCE first appeared our eMac computers would have represented cutting-edge technology.
The advice I would give you is to keep your videos short and interesting.
Most budding film makers produce movies which are much too long. Very few people, including skilled amateurs and semi-professionals, can make good films over ten minutes long! Frequently, though the makers think they are marvellous, the audience is surreptitiously glancing at the clock and wondering when it is going to end.
Five to ten minutes is more than long enough. Keep your films tightly edited, pacy and leave the audience wishing for more.
When I started out, all my scenes were well shot. They were so good I didn't want to cut anything out. My films were often 30 - 60 minutes long.
Now, if I ever look at them, I cringe with horror at what I put my audiences through. They may be well-shot but they are just long and boring and slow paced.
Take a look at adverts - they are often amongst the best films around. They tell a story and deliver a punch-line all in 30 to 60 seconds.
Ian.