Bidirectional / Assymetric trimming… possible?

[Tom Wolsky]

Not possible. Probably come one day. Maybe next rev. Or maybe we’ll have to wait as long as timeline scrolling, up to year 13 and counting.

All the best,

Tom

“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2012 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand

[Lance Bachelder]

Can any NLE other than Avid do this?

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Tom Wolsky]

Fcp5? and later could.

All the best,

Tom

“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2012 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand

[Lance Bachelder]

Cool – never tried it in FCP – though I’ve rarely used it but made great demo in MC.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Larry Asbell]

Your question is a very good one because it is a realistic scenario and gets at the heart of what a great trimming interface in about.

Avid Media Composer could do multitrack asymmetrical trimming like that since the original version 5 from the mid 1990’s! I myself have set up rollers to trim like that thousands of times in 15 years of editing on Avid. Legacy Final Cut Pro doesn’t do it half as well, though one can get the job done in multiple steps.

Final Cut X doesn’t do what you are asking at all. However its “think differently” approach is probably an attempt to offer a good alternative.

I need a little time to develop that thought.

– Larry Asbell

[Larry Asbell]

First let me spell out why one would want to do what you ask in your example, Trevor.

Let’s say your intent is to add back a few words at the head of the dialog track. You know that you have to account for the added time on every track to keep all the downstream sync relationships intact but:

1) You want to evaluate the new dialog without seeing and hearing temporary gaps in the video and effects tracks.

2) You want to have as few as possible cleanup operations to do after adding to the dialog track.

So to avoid having to visiting every track after the dialog trim is made, you anticipate where extra time should be added in each track and place a roller in advance, at the head of some clips and at the tail of others — but one on every track. Now once you’ve got the dialog trim as you want it you’re all done with the trimming of every track, or very close to it.

FCP X can’t do it like this. The way to do something like it involves evaluating and perhaps moving the position of your connecting points, then trimming the primary first and follow up with trims to the connected clips.

But in your example the clips you wish were connected to the primary after the trim point are enclosed within secondaries that are connected before the trim point.

So your alternatives are to first break those clips out of the secondaries and connect them to the video clip to the right of your trim. Alternatively you can do the trim in multiple steps once you know how many frames you added to the initial trim.

– Larry Asbell

[Trevor Asquerthian]

Thanks for giving it your thoughts… I can see ways of *almost* achieving it using compound and connected clips (moving the connection point) etc.. but not in a way that is easily incorporated into everyday workflow.

I trim like this every day. FCP7 isn’t so bad at it… although I’m more likely to do it in a couple of steps rather than all at once. All tracks forward (that Avid doesn’t have properly implemented) is handy in this regard.

Is MC really the only editor that does bidirectional trimming properly though? Here’s hoping FCPx has it on their roadmap.

[Oliver Peters]

My suspicion is don’t hold your breath in ever seeing this in X. The entire point of the magnetic timeline is that Apple feels that X’s editing design achieves the same result in a far simpler manner. That’s the whole reason the magnetic timeline is there. To add this level of trimming power would be tantamount to an admission that the magnetic timeline doesn’t work very well for a lot of projects.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Larry Asbell]

Sadly, I suspect you are right Oliver.

Trevor, I’m curios what do you find as you workaround to do a trim like your example. Do you blow away some of the secondaries so you have individual connected clips that will stay synced where they should? Or do you follow up your primary trim with several trims within the secondaries? Does it make you question whether to leave clips within secondaries as much?

– Larry Asbell

[Trevor Asquerthian]

Larry,

I said that I could see ways of ‘almost’ achieving it. And mostly I think that was probably wishful thinking 😉

OK I just had a stab, with my very limited FCPx knowledge, at it and I’d have to do lots of the trims individually.

No amount of compounding, connecting, moving connect point, lifting out of storyline etc could really help me here.

Which is a shame as it looks like it is potentially way ahead of Avid in many other areas.

But trimming is *quite* an important part of my current paradigm.