Thanks to the Peachpit Press people: editor Karyn Johnson, editor-in-chief Nancy Davis and executive editor Marjorie Baer; editor extraordinaire Judy Ziajka; production editor Connie “A-Team” Jeung-Mills; compositor Owen Wolfson; and Tonya Engst, Jeff Carlson, Jill Marts-Lodwig, Lisa Theobald, and Kelly Ryer, the editors of the previous editions, who built a fine foundation for this edition.

Thanks to my dad, Jon Brenneis, for generously allowing the use of images that appear in this book.

Thanks to the whole Final Cut Pro team at Apple Computer, particularly Mary Massey, Brian Meaney, Erin Skitt, John Malm, and Paul Saccone—genuinely kind, helpful people who work very hard.

Thanks to my collaborator and friend Brett Spivey who, on top of everything else, concocted the compositing and special effects chapters with me.

Thanks always to Lauren Coyne (sharp eyes, sharp mind, sharp pencil) for all the great help.

Thanks to all the men and women of the Final Cut Pro discussion forums: 2-pop.com, LAFCPUG.org, and Creative Cow. You lead the FCP community by example, and I am indebted to you. Keep posting.

Thanks to the deejays at Internet radio beacon KEXP.org (Seattle), where they play the best damn music by real bands. Top fuel for weary fact-jockeys.

Thanks to a group of very important people who defy classification: Michael Wohl, Andrew Baum, Cawan Starks, Ross Jones, Philip Hodgetts, Josh and Michelle Mellicker, Larry Jordan, Elina Shatkin, Tom Wolsky, Bill Davis, Kevin Monahan, Michael Horton, Ken Stone, Ned Soltz, Lowell Kay, Michael Rubin, Steve Martin, Ramy Katrib, Ben Gardiner, Nick Meyers, Fred Huff and Kit Gray.

We lost another major mentor this year—Charles McConathy, founder of Promax Systems. Charles helped create these amazing personal digital video systems we enjoy today. Charles’s passion for assembling something useful out of a jumble of parts that didn’t communicate very well extended into his tireless and generous efforts towards building a human community of digital video users.

Finally—eternal gratitude to the late Ralph Fairweather.