Final Cut Pro X Essentials - The Craft of the Cut - page 15

After installation is complete, you can find Final Cut Pro inside the Applications folder and launch it just as you
launch any other application, by double-clicking its icon. You also can drag the icon from the Applications
folder to the Dock (in Snow Leopard) or Launchpad (in Lion). You need to download additional content after
the initial installation; you can access that content by launching Final Cut Pro and selecting Final Cut
Pro ⇒ Download Additional Content.
To quit Final Cut Pro, select Final Cut Pro ⇒ Quit Final Cut Pro or press +Q.
Locating your files on the Mac
During the course of working with Final Cut Pro, users create what are known as Events and Projects. Events
store all the media related to a particular editing assignment, such as video, audio, and graphics that you intend
to use in the edit, and Projects store all the information about how you've chosen to edit your media together in-
to a Timeline. (We'll explain Timelines later, but for now, think about it as the creative canvas on which you'll
be working.) When you create a new Event, Final Cut Pro creates a folder with the Event's name and places this
folder inside a Final Cut Events folder on your hard drive along with any subsequent Events that are cre-
ated. Similarly, all new Projects are placed inside a dedicated folder of the same name within the Final Cut
Projects folder.
By default, Final Cut Pro places the Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders inside the
Movies folder of the current user's Home directory (see Figure 2.1). Additional Final Cut Events and
Final Cut Projects folders also can be placed on any external hard drives attached to the Mac. These
folders must be placed at the root level of the hard drive, and only one Final Cut Events and Final
Cut Projects folder is permitted for each drive. You specify a drive from inside the Final Cut Pro interface
when an Event or Project is created. Any moving or renaming of Events and Projects should be done from with-
in the interface and not in the Mac's Finder. (We tell you how to move and rename Events and Projects in
Chapter 3.) If the Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders are renamed or moved inside
another folder, Final Cut Pro won't be able to read them and the Events and Projects inside won't be available
when you launch the program.
Figure 2.1 Final Cut Pro places the Events and Project folders inside the User's Movies folder.