… blog posts. While all 3 of you are waiting for something interest from me, you should check out something interesting from Light Iron. The videos of their FCP X Focus workflow event. Good stuff!
Another quickie. This is something that you may know, but for those that don’t it’s pretty handy. It is possible to jump into a Compound Clip that’s in a Project and have the Playhead position in the CC match that of the project. Very useful for adjusting timing of picture in a Compound Clip to music in a project, or music/sfx in a Compound Clip to Project picture. If you don’t have 2 minutes to watch the video, here’s the tip:
Don’t use the button on the clip to “step in” to the Compound. Just double click the top of the clip. Give it a try!
Unfortunately doesn’t work for MultiClips, so send feedback to Apple. Hope it’s useful. 🙂
A thread on the Creative Cow popped up recently revolving around the idea that Adobe could add some sort of trackless functionality to the Premier timeline. The thought being that FCP X “magnetism” was the big difference between the two NLE’s. I posted a response that I thought I’d toss up here because, uh… I need to have stuff on my blog. No tips or tricks, just random babbling:
To me, the lack of tracks is hardly the most unique feature of the FCP X timeline/media representation. People who think that’s the big difference between X and MC/Pr etc aren’t using their imagination.
Look, I’m sure Adobe or Avid could rewrite their NLE’s to function in a trackless manner. They obviously have very talented people working on these apps. But they won’t. Look what happened when Apple did it. It took 3 or 4 years to get to a point where their new NLE was seen as actually useable for “pro’s”. Some of that was perception but honestly, for the first year or so it really wasn’t useable at the “high end”.
For Apple, no biggie, eat the losses and press on. Kill the old version (though it still works) and force users to make a choice, even if that choice is another NLE. For other companies? I don’t see how they could do that and stay viable. Especially Avid. And I don’t think they really feel a need. Some people like their tracks and patching and mixers and panels and bins.
And finally, a lot of FCP X functionality is due to frameworks etc in the OS. Like, a huge chunk of it. How’s that gonna work for a cross-platform application? It won’t.
So I’m sure we’ll see all vendors “borrow” ideas from each other. BMD has “borrowed” more from X than anyone else, but it’s still essentially the same as any tracked NLE. Just prettier. 🙂
FCP X is 4 years into an admitted 10 year dev plan. I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.
This popped up on twitter recently… You can use Emoji characters or Symbols to “rate” things in FCP X. Thing is, you can use them in, like, any text fields. Not sure if it’s a good thing if you share Libraries with other people, but it sure is fun!. Name Keyword Collections, Folders, Events etc. Add notes, even name your clips… Use CTRL-CMD-Spacebar or OPT-CMD-T to select your symbol. 🙂
Here’s a link to the original tweeter.
Just another quick tip with which you may be familiar. If not, it’s very useful. As you probably know, holding the accent/tilde key down while dragging clips will “disable” clip connections temporarily. When you release the key, connections are enabled again. This tip shows you an easy, (and undocumented) way to “lock” connections off so you need not hold the key down.
If you don’t feel like watching the video… the trick is to press the accent/tilde key and, while holding it down, press the SHIFT key and then release both keys at the same time. To reenable clip connections, simply press the accent/tilde key again. Comes in handy…
I was bored the other day so I wrote a little AppleScript to automate the process of sharing a bunch of projects to a single destination. Basically it hits CMD-E, return, return, down arrow for the number of times you specify. You have to put your Projects in a collection or something and select the first one. Then tell Share-O-Matic how many times to repeat the action and get out of it’s way. Literally. It won’t stop until it repeats those keystrokes the number of times you specify. Seriously, it’s literally unstoppable, and kind of terrifying. Also you can’t do anything else while it chugs away.
This is not a real batch exporter, it just queues all your Shares up for you. Start small and see how it works. It’s kind of useless if you only have a few projects, but if you have a lot, you can go have a cocktail while it presses buttons for you. 😉 However, If it destroys your computer and you lose all your work, I disclaim any responsibility. Use at your own risk. And feel free to share it if you find it useful.
Here it is: Click Me!
UPDATE: Seems like great minds think alike, as there’s apparently another similar script available here. It’s 20 bucks as opposed to free, and seems a little fancier than mine, but both appear to do exactly the same thing. He has a tutorial in which he makes a good point… If you’re sharing a lot of Projects, turn off the FCP X alerts in System Prefs when you run the script. Unless you want 100 alerts piling up for you to dismiss. 🙂
So, ya know how you sometimes have a clip, usually a music ender or something, that you’d like to add a reverb tail out to? And how you have to put it in a Compound Clip, add some Gap, go back to the project and extend the clip so you’ll have some media for the ‘verb to tail out in? Or you set an I/O range that extends beyond the clip, export it, import the longer clip you made and add your reverb.
I’ve been doing that in every NLE I’ve used. Actually… I think Vegas might act more lIke a DAW and verb will tail out past a clip boundary. But… you gotta do the workaround in FCP Old, Pr or MC.
Well, in FCP X, turns out you don’t need to do that at all. There’s an easier way – using the audio hold frame “panhandling” trick. Check it out, and thanks to a viewer of one of my other videos for pointing this out, it’s an enormous timesaver…
Just a little drive by follow up to my Post about Multichannel Secondaries. At the start of that video I showed a quick way to extend a clip to connect it to a Primary that it doesn’t overlap. Then, before finishing that topic, I went off on a wild tangent. 🙂 Here’s a quick video that finishes that trick. 2.5 minutes of fun!
Update: This also works for clips that start after the primary clip you’d like to connect to, though it will move the clip so you’ll need to reposition it. Still quicker than other workarounds… Also, I’ve come up with a silly name for this process. “Panhandling”.
usage: “Just stick a panhandle on that clip and you’re good to go” lol
So, I was gonna do a little tip of the day kind of thing about connection points, when something occurred to me. If you use FCP X, you should be familiar with the concept of multiple channels of audio in a single storyline. Well… turns out you can get pretty extreme with that concept. Please enjoy the following demonstration. 7 minutes of your life you’ll never get back, 😉
I did a little Webinar for Moviola the other day, and had to chop out a bunch of stuff to keep it to a reasonable duration. To see if I succeeded, check the post here for a link. In any case, I thought I’d stick some of the stuff I left on the cutting room floor here. So… I present, for your viewing pleasure, a short segment about how I organize my Libraries in FCP X. Just a quick overview lacking details which is, uh, why I cut it out. Enjoy!
Final Cut Pro X Babbling 