Favorites and keywords – only a portion of clip dragging to keyword

[Isa Jacobson]

I really thought I would find others with this issue, so I may be using the wrong words in my search. My method of organising on FCP X (currently on 10.6.5) is to favorite sections of one clip (if for instance I do multiple pans in one clip, or like sections of an interview). I then move the clips into keyword collections. When I do that it only takes across the latest in-and-out/favorite, even though the clip might have multiple favorites. The strange thing is that I don’t remember this happening before a few months ago. I have been working on FCP X for a number of years now. So now I have to go to every clip, press alt-i, alt-o to deselect the ins an outs and then drag the clip to the keyword collection. Am I missing something? It’s incredibly unwieldy.

[Ben Balser]

Favorite sections do not assign themselves to keyword collections, never did, they only get assigned to keyword collections if you assign a keyword to that section, also. That’s two different organizational techniques being used at once. What I do is make a Smart Collection that looks for favorites, or favorite ranges with specific words in the name (you can rename a favorite range in the Browser). So don’t use Favorites, just make the In/Outpoints and make it a keyword range, save a step.

F turns a selected range into a Favorite.

Cmd-K turns it into a keyword range, or remove it from a keyword collection. Or you can simply drag a selected range into an existing keyword collection, BUT if you have more than one range highlighted, it will drag them all. Which I think is happening to you, you have multiple ranges (Favorites) highlighted at one time.

Alt-X removes any selected ranges on a clip (but will not remove any Favorites or Keywords, only deselect the ranges).

But never has assigning a range to a Favorite assigned anything to a keyword collection by itself.

[Isa Jacobson]

Thanks. That’s very helpful. Obviously I’m using a self-taught method that isn’t great for FCPX. Will also see why making keyword collections through ranges isn’t working for me. Might be doing something wrong. Because I see your point – I’m adding a whole step. And thanks for Alt-X – I had forgotten about that shortcut.

[Ben Balser]

Turn on the Skimmer (S) and turn off Audio Skimming after that (Shift-S). Then you can click and drag a range in a clip, Cmd-K (opens Keyword Editor), add a keyword. Or drag and drop the selected range onto an existing keyword collection. Very simple, very fast.

[Paul Szilard]

Hi Isa,

This is the correct way of operation, which I use all the time:

1) Mark your In point and out point on the clip

2) Press F to make it a favourite

3) Repeat for any new ranges for In and Out, followed by F. This will create ALL the favourites

4) At the top right change the view selection from the default of “Hide Rejected” to “Show Favourites” and hey presto, all your individual favourite ranges will be shown as separate sub clips.

[Ben Balser]

There’s no “correct way” in FCPX. If all you need are Favorites, that works fine, Paul. But Keywords work very differently, and the OP was asking about keywords.