Cutting a major Hollywood Feature on FCPX

[Misha Aranyshev]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Have you ever looked at an AAF from x2pro and a moderately organized X timeline in ProTools?”

Not in the real life.

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Aranyshev] “I won’t play cheap tricks of omitting the necessary steps so description will be long”

It’s definitely more than 2, but It’s really not all that different. Sort A/V in Browser in whatever order works. Time, take name number, whatever. Set synchronize prefs to use first marker in clip. Skim to clapper in pix, L/R arrow to check the frame, mark. Skim to clapper in audio, check frame, mark. select both and right click or KB shortcut to synchronize. New clip uses pix name unless you change it. Rinse repeat.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Jeremy Garchow]

It’s not a mess.

And if you go just a little further with Role organization, it’s even better, add Subroles, it’s even better.

I’m not saying you have to like X, you don’t, but you can output exactly what you need in X without a whole lot of fuss.

[Charlie Austin]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s not a mess.”

It most certainly is not. I’ve gotten compliments from mixers on the track organization of stuff I’ve sent to finish. These guys get stuff from MC, and 7 all day every day, and most of it is completely disorganized because you have to do it manually. These days, very few people bother anymore, so mixers spend the first part of the session cleaning stuff up.

Since I used to mix, I’m one of those who do split stuff out in 7 etc. However, I prefer doing it by simply pressing a button. 🙂

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Misha Aranyshev]

It is different. I use keyboard and go down the timeline and down the list of clips. You use mouse and zigzag all over the place.

[Charlie Austin] “Sort A/V in Browser in whatever order works.”

The only order that works, ie. reliably interleaves picture and sound in the list is TC Start provided there is matching timecode. But in this case the point is moot. Date created won’t match with any picture codec FCPX doesn’t support natively. Basically picture and sound are always miles apart in the list.

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Aranyshev] “It is different.”

Yes, it is.

[Michael Aranyshev] “You use mouse and zigzag all over the place.”

No, I don’t. I prefer to skim because it’s easy and I don’t need to press anything, but one could just as easily use arrows and JKL.

[Michael Aranyshev] “Basically picture and sound are always miles apart in the list.”

If the clips have random names I guess they would be. It’s really not too difficult to fix that, especially if you’re charging the client for an extra week! 🙂 It wouldn’t take a week and then you could take a vacation. 😀

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Misha Aranyshev]

[Charlie Austin] “If the clips have random names I guess they would be.”

The names aren’t random. They are the names the recording device gave the footage. Like AA019701_140727_0121_0000000.rmf or A001_C014_0306YU.0000000F.R3D or REEL012_SCENE080_1_camA_TAKE_006_0189238.dpx and 024001.WAV.

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Aranyshev] “The names aren’t random”

I mean random relative to pix. If, as you said earlier, “…the best sorting order is Date Created.” in 7, why wouldn’t that work in X. In any case, are you not being provided with sound reports? Unless I’m misunderstanding it seems that this process, where it appears you have to guess what audio goes with what pix, would be a nightmare in any NLE.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Misha Aranyshev]

[Charlie Austin] “If, as you said earlier, “…the best sorting order is Date Created.” in 7, why wouldn’t that work in X”

Because in 7 my picture is on the timeline and my sound is in the bin. Two separate lists. In X they are in the same lists named according to different conventions and with different creation dates, because even if the clock on all devices was set to the same date and time, ARRIRAW or something recorded in RAW on Odyssey has to be transcoded for X and so will have another creation date.

[Charlie Austin] “are you not being provided with sound reports?”

Look, it is not about syncing a couple of takes. It’s about hundreds and thousands. I’m provided with sound reports most of the time but usually I need to check it just at the beginning of the session. Then it is just a conveyor belt.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Aranyshev] “Look, it is not about syncing a couple of takes. It’s about hundreds and thousands. I’m provided with sound reports most of the time but usually I need to check it just at the beginning of the session. Then it is just a conveyor belt.”

I do this with scene/take. You sort everything by scene/take, and it should line up in the browser close enough to start making Syncro’d clips

Then if you need to match by hand, you simply open the syncro’d clip and slip what you want to slip (audio or video). Syncrho’d clips now carry tc as well.

You can then choose to batch rename based on common metadata, or whatever you want.

I know it doesn’t look or feel like fcp7 and sync n link does an amazing job of automating a lot of the boring tasks, but you can get work done in X pretty easily and efficiently.