desperate: FCPX hangs on boot up

[Jack Niedenthal]

Craig, honestly, it was totally out of the blue. Imagine being on the edge of a building ready to jump because you think you have lost an entire year’s worth of work, then you get an email that says, “Hi, I’m Noah from Apple, would you like me to help solve your problem?” Yeah baby.

Here is what I have done to rearrange my full length feature film, for what it is worth:

First, I am bummed because I liked the idea of working with compound clips, now I am scared to death of them because they cause immense bloating.

I have created 3 new projects for my feature film, each about 30 minutes in length:
Scenes 1-19
Scenes 20-45
Scenes 46-75

I did “select all and copy” from all the compound clips (as opposed to dragging the entire compound clip onto the timeline) and pasted the scenes in their entirety into the project timelines representing the scenes above.

I created 3 new events for each of the three projects and dragged the corresponding compound clips into them (deleting the compound clips from the original event with all the media in it).

So I now have 4 events for the film, one with all the media, 3 with the compound clips. Though I really don’t need the compound clips anymore as I am now just going to work strictly in the project timelines.

When I import new media for the film I will load them in the new event that corresponds to the scenes the media is intended for. The 3 events with the compound clips will just serve as a backup for now but at some point I may trash them as they aren’t really needed. I was told every time you edit them (blading, working with sound and color, etc) it bloats the hell out of the compound clip.

When I am all done and satisfied with the 3 sections of the film I intend to copy/paste all three project timelines into a new “final” project timeline, then burn the DVD. Then I will go drain a case of beer and stare at the moon and wonder why I put myself through all this.

Jack Niedenthal
Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands
http://www.microwavefilms.org
iMac i7 using Lion 10.7.x, HPX 170 using only one 64GB card
I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific, YOU are my only resource.

[Jack Niedenthal]

Also, what I do now is after I am done working, I quit FCPX, then make sure it opens again and then quit a second time before backing up so I don’t make the mistake of backing up a corrupt event/file again.

Jack Niedenthal
Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands
http://www.microwavefilms.org
iMac i7 using Lion 10.7.x, HPX 170 using only one 64GB card
I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific, YOU are my only resource.

[Steve Connor]

Jack, you could also make copies of your CurrentVersion.fcpproject and CurrentVersion.fcpevent files every couple of days as well. I do this on long projects

Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television

[Jack Niedenthal]

Steve, this is a great idea because one of the 3 things that Apple requested to use to analyze my issue was a copy of the CurrentVersion.fcpproject. And the way I eventually solved my issue is we went back to an “Old Version” of that file.

Jack Niedenthal
Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands
http://www.microwavefilms.org
iMac i7 using Lion 10.7.x, HPX 170 using only one 64GB card
I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific, YOU are my only resource.

[Steve Connor]

It would be good if FCPX kept a larger amount of projects in the backup folder and hopefully we’ll see this added. But if it isn’t I’m sure an enterprising third party developer could automate the process!

Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television

[Craig Seeman]

[Jack Niedenthal] “Craig, honestly, it was totally out of the blue.”

Confirmation that Apple truly is omniscient. ;->

[Jack Niedenthal] “I created 3 new events for each of the three projects and dragged the corresponding compound clips into them (deleting the compound clips from the original event with all the media in it). “

I think this is key. I think we should learn this as standard procedure. I think FCPX is designed to make this part of a typical large job workflow design. It’s much more able to do this than FCP7 was. It’s facilitated by the database design.

[Jack Niedenthal] “I was told every time you edit them (blading, working with sound and color, etc) it bloats the hell out of the compound clip.”

I do hope Apple addresses this. In any case I view this kind of compound clips as sort of “temp” workspaces.

Baring change in Compound Clip bloat or function, we need to think about how to take advantage of them without succumbing to the bloat. I would use them (more or less a you might) as scene or segment work areas not so much to be used as a replacement for clips in Projects (timelines). Once dropped into a Project/Timeline one should break them apart.

The tricky part is if one really needs to divide them into “two work areas” by creating a new Event based Compound Clip, is how to do that without bloat. I don’t have an answer for that as of yet. This is all part of learning FCPX workflow which is woefully under “tutored” compared to the wealth of “feature based” tutorials.

So the digestible version would be:
• A Job can have multiple Events in many cases if large.
• Event based Compound Clips are work areas that are to be dropped into Projects/Timelines and broken apart, not used as Clips.
• We need to examine how to handle Event based Compound Clips when they need to be divided, to avoid bloat.

[Jack Niedenthal] “Then I will go drain a case of beer and stare at the moon and wonder why I put myself through all this.”

Because you are the pioneer that is trial blazing a workflow that we are all learning from. I don’t think FCPX is particularly handicapped (FCP7 is much more so in my opinion). We do need to think more about workflow for large projects. I might approach such job a bit differently that how you are handling it now (because you’re educating me).

Personally I wouldn’t want to go the route of cutting/pasting between Projects/Timelines but you may have to at the moment. One can still have a master Project (I think) and use Event based Compound Clips as work areas, Parented by their Events.

BTW I’m using the word “Job” as a super structure since the “true parent” is of the collection of Events. A Job is a collection of Events which have Event based Compound Clip work areas. All of them can be tied to a Master Project/Timeline. I’m not saying this is a certain way to go but I do think we need to explore the most efficient workflow which avoids the “Single Event” thinking and the using of Event Compound Clips as sources.

[Jon Chappell]

[Steve Connor] ”
It would be good if FCPX kept a larger amount of projects in the backup folder and hopefully we’ll see this added. But if it isn’t I’m sure an enterprising third party developer could automate the process!”

It already exists:
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/proversioner

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools – Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools – Edit QuickTime chapters and metdata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools…