CHALLENGED! Making transition from FCP7 to FCPX

[Jerry Jones]

Mark, thanks. What you just said is very helpful to me – helping me get my brain around it. Helping me think FCPX perspective better. Appreciated. Jerry

J. David Jones
V I D E O P R O D U C E R
Unleashing the Power of Stories
to Impact the World….
Follow me on Twitter: jdavid17
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[Mark Smith]

+1 about making a big effort in the browser to screen, favorite hide & tag your material.
1) you get familiar with the material
2) you get organized
3) the actual composing part of your edit will be much easier
4) selecting clip ranges and hiding the “junk” is one of the best features in the browser behind all the tagging and logging features.

[Don Smith]

Jerry, Kannan said exactly what I wanted to say and he did it very well. I just want to emphasize a couple of his points. The first is to forget everything you know about NLE’s. Every. Thing. The Magnetic Timeline, as Kannan said, will be frustrating at first. Frustrating! You’ll do a lot of “WHY does it not do what I expect?” Well, if what you expect is what track-based NLE’s do then, yes, you’ll pull your hair out. FCPX is a praradigm shift. Paradigm. Shift. It’s a different World View that, once you ‘get it’, you’ll never go back. Right now you’re a tribal witch doctor trying to heal your sick people. Afterward, you’ll be the trained physician butting heads against those who are trying to use FCPX as a track-based editor. But, please persevere. At some point the clouds will part and the sun will shine rays upon you and you’ll be enlightened. And, you’ll edit faster than you have ever edited in your life. Faster!

You can, if you want, make FCPX slow down and work like a track-based editor. I know people who are working on FCPX but don’t invest in actually learning it because they’re just using it in a familiar way, but clicking around until they are doing something akin to track-based editing. Please invest in some larn-ning.

RippleTraining.com is, in my opinion (and I have no connection with the company), the best. Not only do i buy every FCPX and Motion tutorial they put out, but they do a weekly free tip called MacBreak Studio. If you go to their YouTube channel to see the catalog of past MBS’s and start watching them, you’ll be amazed. It’s a free insight to magic that is Final Cut Pro X. And, you’ll discover Motion. No, it doesn’t have the high-end power of After Effects, but it’ll do everything that the vast majority of us need and you can easily create your own effects for FCPX that are automatically installed. I’ve created about a dozen effects for my needs so far.

The biggest benefit of doing RippleTraining.com, aside from the excellent content of the training material, is the way they give you access to your purchased tutorials. They are all online and accessible anytime and anywhere. All this and you can still download your tutorials, unlocked, to your local disk. I rarely have to do that though because wherever I go I can quickly access any of my tutorials and get reminded about a process.

So, forget about what you know and open your mind. You will be rewarded. Do not try to ‘click around’ to learn because you’ll just drift into old habits and conform FCPX into a track-based editor. Learn. Learn. Learn. I study FCPX and Motion every day. Every. Day. – Don Smith, NewsVideo.com

NewsVideo.com

[Bret Williams]

I’d say it’s even faster for those that like to just jump in. With skimming in the browser you can look through enormous amounts of footage in seconds. And since the timeline let’s you drag stuff about without being destructive you don’t need to be so particular about mark in, mark out. X let’s you be more creative IN the timeline. You can log something to death. Sometimes a project just needs to get on with it. Things need to be seen in context with each other.

When I first started using X I got all excited with some interviews we shot. I wasn’t even half way done with all my logging and rejecting and organizing when my wife (the producer) walked in with a rough cut she had put together in a few minutes by physically cutting up the printed transcript and arranging the responses into a legible storyline. There I was still organizing away diligently with my new toy when a piece of paper and scissors was the better tool.

_______________________________________________________________________
https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists

[Jerry Jones]

Thanks, Bret. Most appreciated. Ha! Why are women always smarter? ☺ I’m sure I need that reminder sometimes too. Just jump in and get ‘er done.

J. David Jones
V I D E O P R O D U C E R
Unleashing the Power of Stories
to Impact the World….
Follow me on Twitter: jdavid17
https://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jdavid17

[Jerry Jones]

Thanks, Don. Very helpful advise – I’ve read it more than once. I am doing my best to LEARN as you suggest. And to not get locked in to how I’ve done things in the past. Trying to be an “old dog” here learning new ways.

I especially appreciated your info on MacBreak Studio. I’ve watched (and appreciated) several of the Ripple projects. (ANd I agree that they are very helpful.) But was not aware of MBS. Checking it out today. Thanks again. Jerry

J. David Jones
V I D E O P R O D U C E R
Unleashing the Power of Stories
to Impact the World….
Follow me on Twitter: jdavid17
https://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jdavid17

[Mike Fitzsimmons]

I find myself in this mode ALL the time. Super fast/flexible.

Mike
\’Burbs of Detroit

[Mark Smith]

“Jump in and get it done ” can work – but if you are new to the app then knowing some basics is a good thing because without that knowledge I can pretty much guarantee you end up feeling like you’re in some sticky web that tries to thwart you at every turn. When I started in X after having used FCP 5,6,7 I though I would just jump in and make something happen and I did- it wasn’t pretty. I had to take a step back and get a few concepts rearranged for myself before I could make further progress.
Project have different thresholds of organization required. If you have 3 interview s totalling an hour and some b roll, you might just jump in find your sound bites, and slap them in the ime line as you go, paste b roll add titles and done. Not a lot of need to keyword, favorite tag etc. I routinely deal with projects that have gazillions of hours of potential footage, so if I don’t do a solid job of screening & tagging, I’m sunk, going nowhere. Its up to you to figure out where that transition zone between jump in and get it done vs take the time to organize lies for you and your project.

[John Rofrano]

[Don Smith] “The Magnetic Timeline, as Kannan said, will be frustrating at first. Frustrating! You’ll do a lot of “WHY does it not do what I expect?” Well, if what you expect is what track-based NLE’s do then, yes, you’ll pull your hair out. FCPX is a praradigm shift. Paradigm. Shift. It’s a different World View that, once you ‘get it’, you’ll never go back.”

+1

I will never go back and I agree with everything that everyone has said. One thing no one mentioned about the praradigm shift, and my little bit of advice is this:

Stop thinking about Tracks

Start thinking about the Story that you are trying to tell

What is the story? (Your Primary Storyline) What are the sub-stories? (create Secondary Storylines for these) What do you need to make the story advance? How do the secondary stories support that? Maybe you just need a cut-away for a moment (use Connected Clips). FCP X is all about facilitating the telling of the story.

There are no “gaps” in telling a story! Editors leave gaps on timelines while they are editing because with track-based NLEs it’s so hard to insert something later. With the Magnetic Storyline you can decide that something fits better in the middle of something else and simply grab the clip on the primary storyline and drag it to where you want it to be and everything associated with it, the connected clips, and secondary storylines, the foley, etc. come with it, and what is the most magical is that everything else in the new location moves out of the way to make room without you having to do anything!!! This is the true power of the magnetic timeline. Once you rearrange the story to make it flow better, and everything just falls into place, you will wonder why you waster hours of editing time managing tracks and clips and gaps (on my!). 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Jerry Jones]

Helpful advise, John. Thanks. I will need to remind myself of what you say several times. Keeping your notes handy. Jerry

J. David Jones
V I D E O P R O D U C E R
Unleashing the Power of Stories
to Impact the World….
Follow me on Twitter: jdavid17
https://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jdavid17