Hi Craig,

Hopefully, this will answer some of your questions.

I've been looking into creating open movies and working with some of the Open Source and FOSS/FLOSS tools available out there. As far as video editing goes, I have actually found a few different programs that are surprisingly powerful and useful. I have worked with Final Cut Pro and Adobe's Premiere Pro and After Effects. I have also played around a bit with the free training version of Maya. In comparing these programs with with some of the FOSS/FLOSS and Open Source stuff I've used, I'm surprised that they are not more utilised as there are several out there that are very good. Often when you work with some of the smaller community projects, you may need to switch between programs or have a bit of technical understanding to use them effectively. As you are a linux enthusiast, I doubt that will be a problem.

I will now try to answer your question and also give you some tools to use for any free or open source movies you want to make.

Although I have heard and read some very positive things about Cinellerra, I feel it is too limited in terms of cross platform availability. It also lacks community support and approval from the community. Another program that has an excellent reputation is KDEnlive which is also a valid FLOSS (free and open source) program. It can be installed on most operating systems except Windows (Though there are ways around this) and will pretty much do what Avid does. This means you do not need to install a linux system, just find a Mac that isn't too old. Another advantage with using KDEnlive is that it contains core components developed for the broadcasting industry (Yes, these are open source too), meaning you should be able to produce pretty good quality stuff with it.

The KDEnlive website is http://www.kdenlive.org

Personally, I prefer to use the 3d creation and video editing suite Blender (It also does games, but that is beyond the scope of this comment). Blender is a bit like having Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro and Maya integrated into the same program. To find movies made with Blender, search for "Big Buck Bunny" and "Elephant's Dream" on youtube. I prefer it as my linux computers need to be upgraded before I can update my linux to a version that runs Cinelerra or KDEnlive properly.

The following are the programs I have used in the past for free, open-source video editing:

Blender version 2.49b with most available plugins and version 2.5 Alpha 0. Both are available from http://www.blender.org. There are plenty of tutorials online. At present, the main program does not capture, but does everything else nicely.

Virtualdubmod version 1.5.10. I use this mainly for capturing, changing formats and encoding when it doesn't work elsewhere.
Website: http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/
ZS4 video editor. ZS4 looks very un-flashy, but is a good basic tool to have. There are good tutorials available.
Website: http://www.zs4.net/

Avidemux version 2.52. This is a bit primitive, but works.
Website: http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/

There is also an online option called JayCut. It is used for the open movie "The Mashup Movie," but I have not tried it myself. You may want to check it. The website is http://jaycut.com/

If you want to find out what the programs are like, search for tutorial videos on Vimeo and Youtube. Try "cinelerra tutorial" or "KDEnlive tutorial."

Hope this is of use to yourself or anyone else who wants to try opensource movie making.

Good Luck!

Sara