Apple Final Cut Pro HD (4.5): New Features - Manual (Page 80)

80 Chapter 4 Editing Film With Final Cut Pro in a PAL Environment
The reason this exercise is challenging is because you have to keep track of the count
on paper or in your head and ignore the numbers on the clock. The first minute is easy.
After that, if you simply copy the numbers on the clock’s second counter, you won’t be
doing the exercise properly. The first problem with copying the numbers you see on
the clock counter is that you will eventually include the :59, which isn’t allowed. The
other, more challenging problem is that each minute that you skip another :59, your
number count on paper drifts further and further from the clock’s number count.
One way to make the exercise easier is to use a clock or metronome (a musical beat
counter) that flashes 60 times per minute, but doesn’t show an actual number count.
This way, the numbers on the clock won’t throw you off, but a steady beat (rate) is
provided to keep you counting in proper time.
Even if you can’t easily complete the second exercise, make sure you always make
some kind of mark on the paper for each second that passes. This is the most critical
thing to do, so that each second of actual time that passes is accounted for on your
piece of paper, no matter how scribbled it may have been written.
The second exercise demonstrates an important concept: No matter what you write on
paper, you are always writing at a rate of 60 times per minute. The only difference
between the first and second exercise is not how fast you wrote (it was the same rate
in both cases: 60 times per minute), but what you wrote, since you used a different
counting method in each exercise.
At the end of the first exercise, looking at the last number immediately tells you how
long you were writing. For example, if the last number you wrote was 3:14, you know
that you were writing for 3 minutes and 14 seconds. However, in the second exercise, if
the last number you wrote was 3:14, it would be incorrect to say you were writing for
3 minutes and 14 seconds because you actually skipped a couple of numbers along the
way. Since you skipped 0:59, 1:59, and 2:59, the numbers written on paper are
3 seconds ahead of where the actual clock time was at. In other words, 3:14 on your
paper means you were only writing for 3 minutes and 11 seconds. More importantly,
the numbers themselves don’t correspond to how much time passed, but each second
is accounted for because you wrote something at each second.
UP01022.Book Page 80 Tuesday, March 23, 2004 7:32 PM