I am applying for a full-time position that will require me to use Final Cut Pro. I own and regularly use Adobe Premiere at home. I am already relatively familiar with the Macintosh platform, so I don't have to put on training wheels again, but I was wondering what would be the best way to get myself up to speed with the intricacies of Final Cut Pro.

Thanks.

Pick up Diane Weynand's book "Apple Pro training Series: Final Cut Pro 5" is a great place to start.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321334817/qid=1135706983/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-7092774-4108844?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

You can get some tutorials from the following

Ripple Training
http://www.rippletraining.com/engine/index.php?

Total Training
http://www.totaltraining.com/prod/apple/finalcutpro5_ess.asp?mscsid=

Vasst Training
http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?for=15728640&entity=16&sort=priority

Larry Jordon.biz
http://larryjordan.biz/store/index.html

lynda.com $25 a month and you can cancel and reactivate whenever you want.

Brian, having been a long-time user of Media100 and Premiere before jumping to FCP 3 years ago, I can tell you the transition is really very painless. If you take a quick tour of the interface through any of the previously mentioned training programs, you'll be up to speed in no time.

I do recommend a supplement to the manual, though. The manual becomes very helpful, but only after you've been using the program for awahile and are used to the somtimes strange naming conventions that change between applications. Lynda.com, DTMS or TT can all get you off and running, and the Apple Pro Training series is a capable adjunct to the manual.

One gotcha to be aware of, though, is FCP's approach to file management. In the main Preferences, you'll set scratch disks. That will create a series of subfolders for different types of media, as well as sub-sub folders for each project. This can be problematic when you move from one volume to another, back and forth. FCP by default wants you to keep all the media on one drive, organized into the sub folders. It's a challenge if you want to, for instance, keep all media, renders, graphics, scripts, etc. for a project in a single folder. The media settings are universal to the app, and do not follow each project.

Kenstone.net is also an excellent resource.