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Some Qs from former FCP 7 user
Hi Everybody,
Yes, I admit it: After being hatefully negativ of FCPX, I took the time now to dive into the software and learn it. I still think, a lot of things are not good and awfully Prosumer orientated, I must say, that some inventions and changes in architecture make it blazing powerful for certain type of jobs.
I have 2 Questions, since I do not seem to figure this out on my own:
1. In FCP7 I can work away for a while, decide that I don’t like what I did the last 10min and just close my project without saving those last 10min, then re open, and I have my previous state. But FCPX always is in the current state. Any way to still achieve the same?
2. In FCP7, I can do “save as” and make a different variation of my project, e.g. a client’s wish or I wanna just try out things, keeping another copy of the project in its original state.
is that possible with FCPX?Thanx for suggestions.
Greetings,
Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang -
18 Replies
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Not sure what’s prosumer in FCPX but that’s a debate for another forum… 🙂 Most people find that once they get to grips with the X workflow, all the other NLEs seem painfully awkward to use.
On to the questions:
1. I usually select all and create a compound clip as a snapshot of the current project before I do any playing around with ideas. Then just break the compound clip apart again and keep going. Makes it easy to have multiple versions and restore all or part of the previous state of your project.
2. You can duplicate a project (CMD-D when you’re in the project library) and move on. You could also do this to snapshot your project when you plan to do some playing around but too many projects open at the same time tends to slow FCPX down a bit.
Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland -
Thanx for the quick reply!
Point 2 is clear, but could you elaborate on point 1.)?
If you make a compound clip – it’s like nesting, no? So if I wanna play around with things inside the compound, I have to open it anyway and then it also changes?Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang -
..and concerning the Prosumer Q: You are right, it’s not for this forum. Just one little side note:
I do see, that a lot of editors, who swear on the the new FCPX produce content that is filled with those FCPX quick working templates and make a lot of things look the same. Many showreels of Production Houses, that I see working their Reels with FCPX have a same look and feel. There is definitely a downside to this kind of approach. Nevertheless, it is crazy fast and innovative way of working considering pure offline editing. Short projects, I’d definitely will edit on this platform. Effects, Online & Grading I still would do on other Apps, since it’s too simplified template based in FCPX. Also for features and long documentaries I would not consider it. But hey, like there is no THE camera, there is also not THE NLE App. Every job needs the right tool and for certain things the new FCPX definitely wins the Pepsi challenge by far!All the Best,
Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang -
I would duplicate the Project as a “save as…” Workaround.
I then usually make a folder called ” versions” so the project library stays clean.You can do it with compounds. But then you will have to tell FCPX to make an independent copy, because the original compound will be changed otherwise. Therefore i hardly use this as a versioning tool.
Your remark about “prosumer”….. There are millions of aftereffects clips that are based on either templates or give away the aftereffects origin simply by the way the layers are popping up. So it is always the editors choice and not the NLEs fault when stuff looks similar or unoriginal.
We use FCPX for over two years now for broadcast, shortfilms, commercials, documentaries with thousands of clip and even in live-environments as a graphics player. I suggest you use it and don’t quote rants from 2011. You will be surprised how well it works once you understand a project is more than a timeline and an event is more than a bin for bins.
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Maybe think of compound clips as virtual clips rather than nested clips. You can open them to edit the contents and make changes globally to every instance, or you can add them to a timeline, break them apart and use them as pseudo templates.. They have lots of uses.
I take a snapshot by turning my timeline into a compound clip. I then immediately break that clip apart again, which breaks the relationship with the new compound clip. I can now edit, play with ideas or whatever. If I need to restore to my snapshot timeline, I can delete the current timeline, edit in the snapshot compound clip, break it apart and be back to where I was before I began playing.
Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland -
I agree with you – but things like the title templates are great if the budget is low and I get to add a little extra production value that wouldn’t otherwise be there. I’d argue that it’s not prosumer to provide them, just maybe a little prosumer to use them. But guilty as charged. Any port in a storm or low budget edit 🙂
For me FCPX is the cornerstone. All edits start here, and I don’t think there’s anything much I wouldn’t edit in X. Then it’s off to Smoke, or Resolve, or After Effects, or whatever else. As you say, there’s no one application these days.
Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland -
I second Jeff’s and Alban’s opinions. So much has changed since the first appearance of FCPX. We use it on 15 stations working mainly for national broadcast. We do commercial, episodic, long form documentary and narrative work on it, we have used it for spitting out daily reports against fierce deadlines during the Olympic and Paralympic Games… not exactly “prosumer” stuff I would say.
I hardly ever use the templates, except when I see one that offers a pretty good starting point for a certain job we have to do. Then I open it in Motion to tweak and customize it and I save the custom template straight from Motion into the FCPX browser for further use. This can be a huge time-saver on fast turnaround projects while the client does get his “own” look.
Glad you like the application, once you will get more familiar with it you will see that you can go very deep with it. If you are really new to FCPX a proper basic training is the best way to understand how it really works.
You will be surprised how well it works once you understand a project is more than a timeline and an event is more than a bin for bins. Now that effectively sums it all up!
Oh, and regarding your initial question:
We also use the Duplicate Project feature for versioning, though I’m not a huge fan of storing long Projects as CCs in an Event. However, saving complex compositions as CCs in an Event to re-use them e.g. as editable openers on multiple Projects is a common workflow in our shop.
And of course we use a rigid backup strategy for all our work. Besides our regular media and system backup workflow I have been quite happy with a little app called “Backups” for making incremental backups of our FCPX Events and Projects. The same thing can be done with another app called Proversioner.
https://npassociatesllc.com/backupsforfcp/
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/proversioner/Happy editing!
-Ronny
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There’s a point that’s missed about the templates. Yes, there are plenty of lazy editors who simply use the presets without personalizing them, but there IS another approach. Let’s say you have a good motion graphics designer who understands Motion. In a station environment, that designer could create a completely custom station graphics package built strictly in Motion as FCP X Effects. These templates can be installed in each editor’s system for quick access to this custom graphics package. No need to create rendered animation packages. No need to bounce out to After Effects or even Motion to implement the “look”.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Take a look at Backups for FCPX. Great cheap tool to handle both your questions. But even with that, I still use duplicate copies of timelines for versioning (beyond the “try that” scenario).
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I would avoid using compound clips unless you are really versed in how they work and sure you need to use one. For one thing they have the potential to bog down the system, but more importantly they complicate things in terms of what are global changes to the compound clip, to its constituent parts, and to the original media.
In almost all cases I find that simply duplicating the project is the way to go.
When working within a large timeline, another option is to simply copy the relevant piece of the timeline into a new project for safekeeping so that if you want to restore that chunk, you have it saved and ready to go.
Typically if I am re-editing a chunk of my timeline I will copy that chunk into a temporary project, edit there AND copy it into a project I call “old sequences” that serves as a backup reservoir for old edits. When I am done editing in the temporary project I copy the sequence into my main timeline and delete the temporary project. If I ever want to restore I simply copy the relevant sequence out of the “old sequences” project.
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