Introduction

These days, you can find video just about anywhere. You'll find it on the hard drive of your computer, on the hard drive of your TiVo^® box. You'll find it on your iPod^® and on your cellphone. You can upload it for all the world to see on dozens of video sharing and video blogging sites. You can even view home-made video shorts on cable channels such as Current^® TV and sometimes on CNN^®.

The Sundance^® Film Festival, the Slamdance^® Film Festival, and Hollywood itselfonce the exclusive domain of filmhave now found themselves becoming more and more a part of the digital world. And digital video, with the advent of 24p and HDV recording and editing equipment, is increasingly closing the gap between it and film.

So here you sit with your camcorder and your computer, eager to join this exciting world, but finding, despite all this change and energy, the whole digital video experience for you personally is lacking something; missing that one key ingredient necessary to keep you involved and to keep you interested: fun.

The fact is, editing video is hard work. Getting the right shots in the first place is no easy feat. Then capturing your footage onto your computer, gathering all your music, creating titles, and duct-taping the whole thing together can take you hour after painstaking hour, even day after humbling day. Only in the end, to have a video production that still has you wishing you could have done it better, could have created something a little more special.