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Alternative to subclipping
Hi all,
I’ve recently encountered a problem with subclips where I moved a completed project to a different drive. A couple of weeks ago I needed to go back into it, reconnected all the media no problem, except all the subclip data in my timeline was lost and couldn’t be found. So even though the source clips were there, the subs were registering offline. The only way to fix it was to find the exact in and out on the master clips (of which there were over 90) and re-lay each edit.
I searched through the manual, the CoW, and the interwebz and it seems there’s no way to reconnect them. What surprised me though, was the advice from a few contributors which was that it’s a bad idea to edit with subclips.
Surprising because I did my training with an FCP certified trainer and this was what he taught me to do. There are a number of projects I’ve worked on where I couldn’t imagine how to do the edit without subclipping!
So if subclips are a bad idea what’s the alternative? Should I be exporting them all as independent clips? And if so, I’m gonna need a heck of lot of storage real quick aren’t I?
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6 Replies
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[Neil Weaver] “What surprised me though, was the advice from a few contributors which was that it’s a bad idea to edit with subclips.
Surprising because I did my training with an FCP certified trainer and this was what he taught me to do.”
Neil,
As you progress and come here to The Cow for more answers, don’t be surprised to find more and more examples of holes in the knowledge of your certified trainer. Just think of what H.L. Mencken was talking about when he said, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
Subclips do have some issues — you stumbled upon one of them already. They are indeed useful for some projects, but try adding markers to your sources instead.
I think you will find that markers accomplish many of the same things as subclipping, but they are much cleaner, though not quite as precise, since they do not put in and out points in place.
Also, if you notice, markers create a dropdown menu in the browser that create a separate log entry for each marker. And, you can also navigate to individual markers them by right-clicking on the source with your mouse and choosing the marker you want to go to from the list at the bottom of the mouse functions.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thank you David.
I should point out in case he’s reading this, my trainer is an award winning editor in his own right so I’ve no doubts about his skills.
Your suggestion certainly sounds worth trying David, It would mean re-calibrating my approach to clip logging in general as I’m used to creating bins for clip categories which I find makes navigating between clips very quick.
Without having tried it. I can’t quite visualise how it’ll look in the browser and whether that method will speed up or slow down my workflow.
Will let you know, cheers!
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I would second that advice. As someone who floats between Avid and FCP I would say that sub-clipping in Avid works very well for me, especially as the handles are maintained. In FCP I find markers to be the way to go. I forget exactly how you do it but you can have a window open showing the markers and just click on them in that window which takes you straight there. There are some improvements with FCP7 as well. Horses for courses.
Regards, Matt. -
[Neil Weaver] “I should point out in case he’s reading this, my trainer is an award winning editor in his own right so I’ve no doubts about his skills.”
No offense meant to your trainer, but you will find that there are so many ways to accomplish things in FCP that even many accomplished editors and trainers don’t know them all.
Meanwhile, here on this Cow FCP Forum, with it’s hundreds of thousands of posts from all over the globe, we get so much info coming through that even the experts here are constantly learning new ways of doing things.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Award winning or not, there are many ways to skin the cat.
Personally, I’m NOT a fan of subclips. Don’t use ’em. Don’t like ’em. Don’t think they’re necessary.
I’ve seen too many editors spend too much time “organizing” and NOT EDITING! I’d rather see an editor with a terribly sloppy project , yet great creative instincts than one with Subclips up the wazoo, but a BORING timeline.
I prefer using the Apple finder level to organize my projects. I don’t see the point in subclipping. It’s MUCH easier to scan top to bottom of a long clip than to load multiple clips into a viewer repeatedly. To harken back to to old film paradigm, there a certain serendipity that comes from constantly scanning your “select reel” or long clips searching for something, only to discover a completely unexpected solution.
Spend your time EDITING, not subclipping.
Just my opinion.
Mark
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[Mark Raudonis] ” there are many ways to skin the cat. “
Spare a thought for the FCP edit suite cat, folks.
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