Final Cut Pro 6 – Peachpit 2007

The illustrations for the Apple Pro Training Series for Final Cut Studio 2 were originally intented to be one continuous illustration across the primary four products in the studio. I subsequently abandoned that plan. However, I kept some of the concetps and goals, so, as a result, elements of the Final Cut illustration flow out to the right in the following two illustrations for Motion and Soundtrack Pro.

Regardless, the illustrations for Final Cut Studio 2 are intended to be viewed side-by-side in the following order: Final Cut, Motion, Soundtrack, DVD Studio. The illustrations viewed in this order reveal connections from Final Cut into the rest of the studio product illustrations. The goal of this was to mirror the workflow for editorial flowing into other disciplines of finishing a program. However, each cover illustration needed to hold it’s own compositionally and be able to stand alone.

In this illustration, i chose to strongly imply a left to right flow in the piece. Since Final Cut is at the ingest/starting point of the editorial process, i wanted the composition to feel like it was flowing into “somethin else”. The implied camera field-of-view and the collection point of the circle on the left hints at the capture process, without dominating. The background form serves to format an abstract over-arching goal of the meaning of a given editorial project, and preceeds the actual cutting together of the data objects. The “open windows” which spawn lines that continue off to the right both tie into destinations on the Motion 3 and the Sountrack Pro 2 cover illustrations.


Completed spring 2007.