FCE for a newbie
 

Has anyone started out doing editing on FCE and then made the investment and jump up to FCP? I can't really justify the cost as I haven't done any real editing and am looking to break into this by editing a short documentary I shot. No special effects, just interviews, everyday life stuff. Any advice for a newbie?

FCE is a great program. It really does a tremendous amount and if you haven't done much editing it's a great place to start. It functions a lot like FCP so if you eventually make the jump you'll have a familiarity. Also, I think FCE projects can be imported into FCP (I'm not positive on this, perhaps someone else can confirm).

It's really not fair to compare FCE to FCS as FCS includes a lot of things that can be invaluable to a professional editor. But for anyone learning through many professional projects FCE is great. You're not making a mistake by starting out with FCE.

I totally agree with Josh. FCE is a great program to start. I did so myself about 2 years ago. It really does everything for you in the beginning.
I only "upgraded" to FCS a month ago because I wanted Motion and compressor, ability to do 24fps on the Canon A1 and a few other things (and only because I got education pricing).
FCE is more or less identical to FCP with a few things missing that probably are not relevant for a beginner - or not justifiable given the price difference.

Best,
Dino

FCE will be fine if you don't need the rest of the studio (and those couple features).
I'd say just use iMovie for a while. See what happens. Then see if you want to keep going with it.
I've done some good stuff with iMovie. It's not too bad.

Move up to FCE when you're ready (you might be now-- that's fine), then FCP... same.

As someone who started out with iMovie and then stepped up to FCE and hasn't yet made the next step to FCS, I'll second that it is the way to go.

I was able to put together some great stuff in iMovie when I started out. The feature that iMovie didn't have that made me jump to FCE was color correction. I haven't kept up on iMovie, so it may have CC capabilities now.

Now that I've been using FCE for about 2 years, there have only been a handful of things that I haven't been able to get it to do. But the idea of DVD Studio Pro, Soundtrack (especially), and Motion really have me thinking about the move up to FCS. And most likely as soon as I complete a few more jobs and pay off my camera, I'll make the investment.

One thing that I don't think that I could've done without with using FCE is having Photoshop CS. I know it sounds strange to say, but I build all of my graphics in Photoshop and then animate them as best I can in FCE. I think that I would have been extremely frustrated with the quality of my work had I not purchased Photoshop early on.

My best piece of advice would be, no matter what you decide to use as your editing software - Buy the tutorial book(s), buckle down and teach yourself everything that you can about the editor before you have a project in front of you. You'll be faster at the projects later, you'll be less frustrated editing them, and you'll have better ideas about what you can do when you're shooting them.

Just my thoughts...