HitFilm's video editing tools are now FREE to use No other free editor has built-in 3D compositing and 100+ effects GET FOR FREE

Just downloaded...   FWIW, it's worthwhile downloading some of the tutorials as well.  

Got it. and so did my daughter. She is a theater major, but really wants to make her own movies. Do any of you recommend a good affordable camera that will work well with Hitfilm?

Thank you Larry...

I must have a blind spot about this program, because I have been editing homemade videos for 20+ years, using Adobe Premiere and Vegas Pro, and I have never seen an application as convoluted and difficult to use as Hitfilm. It should be free, and they should send someone with it to your house to get you started.

Larry Jones
I must have a blind spot about this program, because I have been editing homemade videos for 20+ years, using Adobe Premiere and Vegas Pro, and I have never seen an application as convoluted and difficult to use as Hitfilm. It should be free, and they should send someone with it to your house to get you started.

They basically do...they have  full tutorial section

Yup, hence my comments about downloading some of the tutorials.  
 
I also have Vegas Studio and find it fairly intuitive for what it does.   I had to watch the basic editing tutorials to have a clue where to start with HitFilm - now I just need to remember...
 

I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I watched a few of the tutorials, and they weren't very good. The guy talked and clicked on stuff so fast that I couldn't follow it, used terms that were not explained, and referred to earlier steps that were not shown in the video.

I have no use for hitfilm, but it's actually a decent product. Kind of apples and oranges to compare to Vegas because it does things that are impossible in Vegas. I know of no program with strong compositing capabilities that is user friendly. Making the jump from Vegas is particularly hard because of Vegas DAW-like atmosphere. If you think hitfilm is unintuitive, download Fusion or the demo of Nuke. If you already have an editing program, I would suggest sticking with it. Hitfilm offers NOTHING you don't already have on the editing side of things. It's value is in providing special fx and compositing cheaply. There is NO  easy compositing program and tutorials tend to be head scratchers to most beginners due to all the jargon.

Positive note for hitfilm is it actually handles 3D imported objects better than After Effects. This, like many of hitfilm's best features, are unfortunately best suited by people already experienced in compositing 3d objects in other programs. Odds are if you have another 3D compositing app, you are unlikely to need or use hitfilm.