The Craft of Editing – Peachpit – 2007

In this cover illustration, i wanted to show an emphasis on very specific part of the process of editing time based content. The focus is intentionally limited to a very isolated context of object floating in a space. The visual representation of a cutting mechanism form the primary vertical objects in the composition.

In previous illustrations for non-linear editing applications, I leaned towards representing the content for timelines as two dimensional rectilinear shapes since the majority of the compositional goals were to focus on the application at large. In this case, the focus of the illustration was about the depth of the content which was being edited and how to best work with it in Final Cut. With that as the goal, I wanted to show the source for the edit as solid blocks of semi-transparent material; the implication is that the depth and context of the material being edited allows the editor to make decisions about the way to edit their material.

I use amorphous or flowing cloth-like representations in my work to represent an arbitrary entity. In this case, the object flowing into the first block of content was created to represent an arbitrary entry point to the current context of the objects. The downstream blocks were intentionally left out of the image to imply that the editor is working from left to right or from start to finish in the piece. The curved “brackets” in the graphic imply an isolation context for the focus of the edit, a concept which Final cut uses well, allowing the editor to focus on a single area of time to finesse an edit.

Completed summer 2007.

Apple Pro Training Series:
The Craft of Editing with Final Cut Pro
ISBN: 032152036X
May 2007