Final Cut Pro facts for kids

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Final Cut Pro

A 2018 screenshot of Final Cut Pro
Original author(s)	Macromedia Inc.
Developer(s)	Apple Inc.
Initial release	April 1999; 26 years ago (1999-04)

Stable release	11.1 / March 27, 2025; 4 months ago (2025-03-27)

Operating system	macOS (13.4 or newer) iPadOS (16.4 or newer)
Type	Video editing software
License	Proprietary

Final Cut Pro (often called FCP or FCPX) is a special computer program used by professionals to edit videos. It was first made by Macromedia, and since 1998, Apple has been in charge of it. Final Cut Pro lets people bring in video clips, change them around, add effects, and then save them in many different ways.

In the 2000s, many people started using Final Cut Pro, especially video fans and independent filmmakers. It even became popular with film and TV editors who used to use other programs. By 2007, nearly half of all professional editors in the United States were using Final Cut Pro. In 2011, a completely new version, Final Cut Pro X, was released. It was different at first, but many updates have added back important features. A version for the iPad also became available in May 2023.

What Final Cut Pro Can Do
- How the Program Looks and Works
- Behind the Scenes: Technical Stuff
How Final Cut Pro Grew
Final Cut Pro for iPad
Movies and Shows Made with Final Cut Pro
- With Final Cut Pro 1 to 7
- With Final Cut Pro X
See also

What Final Cut Pro Can Do

Final Cut Pro helps you edit videos without changing the original files. This means you can always go back to your first video clips. It works with many video types, like 4K and 8K. You can also bring in projects you started on iMovie from your iPhone or iPad.

The program lets you:

Put together many video layers at once.
Add as many sound tracks as you need.
Edit videos from multiple cameras at the same time (called multi-camera editing).
Work with 360-degree videos.
Use common editing tools like cutting, moving clips, and changing video speed.
Add cool video transitions and effects.
Use tools to change colors, fix sound problems, and add special graphics.

You can also add more features to Final Cut Pro with special add-ons called plug-ins. These can give you even more effects, titles, and ways to change your videos. Apple makes it possible for anyone to create these plug-ins.

How the Program Looks and Works

Final Cut Pro has a unique way of organizing and editing your videos:

Event Browser: This is where all your original video clips are stored. You can search and sort them using keywords and smart collections to find what you need quickly.
Magnetic Timeline: Unlike other editing programs that use fixed tracks, Final Cut Pro's timeline is "magnetic." Clips snap together, filling gaps and moving other clips out of the way automatically. This helps keep your video parts in sync.
Roles: You can give each video or audio clip a "role" (like "Dialogue," "Music," or "Effects"). This helps you organize different types of sound and video on your timeline. When you finish your project, you can easily separate these roles for different uses.
Content Auto-Analysis: When you bring in new video, Final Cut Pro can automatically check it for things like faces, sound levels, background noise, and color balance. This helps you organize your clips and fix common problems quickly.
Synchronized Clips: If you record video and audio on separate devices, Final Cut Pro can automatically line them up using timecodes or sound patterns.
Compound Clips: You can group several video and audio clips into one "compound clip." This helps keep your timeline neat and lets you reuse groups of clips in different projects.
Closed Captions: You can create or import closed captions directly into your video timeline.
Multicam Editing: This feature lets you combine video from many cameras into one clip. You can then easily switch between different camera angles while editing.
Auditions: You can group different versions of a clip or edit together. This lets you quickly try out different options for a scene and see how they look in your video.
3D Titles: You can create cool 3D text titles that look like they're from a Hollywood movie, right inside the program. You can add textures, lighting, and shadows.
360-Degree Video Editing: You can import and edit videos that capture everything around you, like those from 360-degree cameras.
Advanced Color Grading: This helps you make your video colors look perfect, using special tools like color wheels and curves.

Behind the Scenes: Technical Stuff

Final Cut Pro is a completely new program compared to its older versions. It uses modern computer power, like all your computer's main processors and graphics cards, to make editing smooth and fast. It can handle video sizes from small to very large, even beyond 4K. It also works with many different camera and audio formats. Many tasks, like saving and preparing videos, happen in the background so you can keep working without interruptions. Final Cut Pro is made only for Apple's macOS computers.

Motion 5: This is another Apple program that works with Final Cut Pro. You can create special titles, animations, and effects in Motion 5 and then use them in Final Cut Pro.
Adobe Photoshop: You can bring in Adobe Photoshop projects with layers into Final Cut Pro. This means you can use your Photoshop designs directly in your video.

How Final Cut Pro Grew

Final Cut Pro has a long history. It was first developed by a team led by Randy Ubillos, who also worked on Adobe Premiere. This team later joined Macromedia to create a new video editing program called KeyGrip.

In 1998, Apple bought the KeyGrip team and renamed the program Final Cut. They kept working on it, adding support for FireWire cameras, and finally released it as Final Cut Pro in April 1999.

Early Days and Success

To help people learn Final Cut Pro, Apple worked with training companies to offer workshops and training materials. This helped the program become well-known quickly.

Final Cut Pro became popular partly because it worked well with new digital video (DV) cameras that connected easily using FireWire. Some of the first TV shows and movies edited with Final Cut Pro include Women of Wrestling (2000) and The Rules of Attraction (2002). Famous editors like Walter Murch started using it, which showed that it was ready for professional use. In 2002, Final Cut Pro even won an Emmy award for its impact on the TV industry.

Final Cut Pro 4 to 7

Final Cut Pro 4 came out in April 2002. It added new programs like Compressor (for changing video formats), LiveType (for cool titles), and Soundtrack (for making music).

Later versions, like Final Cut Pro 4.5 (called "Final Cut Pro HD"), added support for high-definition (HD) video formats. Final Cut Pro 5, released in 2005, added support for even more HD formats and memory card recording.

In 2006, Apple started selling Final Cut Pro only as part of a bigger package called Final Cut Studio. The last version in this series, Final Cut Pro 7, was released in 2009.

The Big Change: Final Cut Pro X

On June 21, 2011, Apple released a completely new version called Final Cut Pro X. It was rebuilt from the ground up to use modern computer power better. It had a new look and new ways of working. However, some professional editors were not happy at first because it was missing some features they used in older versions. For example, it didn't have easy ways to share projects with other editing programs.

But Apple quickly released many updates to Final Cut Pro X. Within six months, many of the missing features were added back. Editors like Walter Murch, who was critical at first, later became interested in using it.

One big change was the "Magnetic Timeline," which was different from the old track-based timelines. This caused some issues at first, but Apple added "Video and Audio Roles" to help users organize and export their sound easily.

Over the years, Final Cut Pro X has continued to get many updates, adding features like:

Support for many different camera formats.
Improved ways to manage your video files.
3D titles.
Better color correction tools.
360-degree video editing.
Support for HDR video (which shows more colors and brightness).
Tools for closed captioning.
New processing engines for faster performance.
AI-powered tools like Magnetic Mask for isolating objects and Transcribe to Captions for automatically creating captions from speech.

In November 2020, Apple dropped the "X" from the name, and the program is now simply called Final Cut Pro again. As of April 2018, over 2.5 million people were using Final Cut Pro X.

Final Cut Pro for iPad

A special version of Final Cut Pro for the iPad was released on May 23, 2023. It works on iPads with Apple's powerful M-series chips. You can get it by paying a monthly or yearly fee.

Movies and Shows Made with Final Cut Pro

Many movies and TV shows have been edited using Final Cut Pro over the years. Here are some examples:

With Final Cut Pro 1 to 7

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Ring (2002)
Cold Mountain (2003)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Super Size Me (2004)
Corpse Bride (2005)
300 (2007)
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
The Social Network (2011)
Parasite (2019)

With Final Cut Pro X

Film

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (2013)
Focus (2015)
What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)
Geostorm (2017)
The Banker (2020)
Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)
Blood Red Sky (2021)

Television

Have I Got News For You (2020)
BBC News (2014)
Trailer Park Boys (2012)
Leverage (2012)
Scott the Woz (2017)
Diana: In Her Own Words (2017)
Dogs Of Berlin (2018)
Matchday: Inside FC Barcelona (2019)