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FCP X Organizing Footage Tips?
Hello!
I’m working with a lot more documentary footage than usual and am having trouble organizing it in FCPX. On the drive with the footage, there are two folders marked Day One and Day Two. The folders within them are labeled by camera name and location. The subfolders have names of footage formats (4k, 2k 240fps, 1920×1080 60p, 24p, etc.) Finally, some of their subfolders are labeled numerically (e.g. 00001) and contain a few clips.
What are some tips and good practices for organizing and attributing keywords to this footage in FCP X so I can more efficiently navigate through the event browser and find what I need?
If anyone could share an awesome post they’ve found helpful here as well on the subject, that’d be great.
Thanks for your consideration in advance!
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4 Replies
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Search this forum for Organize and a lot of info will come up.
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Just saw this article:
https://www.redsharknews.com/post/item/2152-how-to-edit-part-1-preparation -
This is a good read for roles and workflow: https://library.creativecow.net/austin_charlie/FCPX-Timeline/1
My own thinking out loud:
I’m in the same boat, producing a project that is way more complex than I have experience with.
Here is what I have gathered:
There is no right way or one way to do this. You can assign as many keywords to clips as you like so that you can filter them according to what you need. You can create smart collections. And you can assign roles. Plenty of google hits for any of these. Once you know how to use these tools, it’s all very much up to how you work or think about your project.
Look through the metadata in list view on any given clip and decide if a piece of data would help as a keyword.
What I’m reading from editors who have been there and done that is that setting up roles correctly is a huge benefit and cannot apply to clips already on the timeline. Bill keeps pointing out that in FCP X much of editing takes place in the browser. Stay in the browser until you know your footage well and have a firm grip on where you are going with it. You can always start a timeline to see if the organization is working for you, what you find your self searching for or what gotchas start killing time. You can delete it and start again, save it, Copy it, turn it into a compound clip to be used in a new timeline, etc.
Find a completed video with an organization structure that is similar to your goal and note what are its components.
Spend some time creating as many keywords, smart collections as you can think of. Used/unused, Date, subject, shot type, POV, theme, location, intro, development, plot point, climax, review, interview, background, etc. Label also by favorite and reject. Remember you can assign a favorite and keyword to subclips. So you can go through every clip you have and start labeling its parts.
By the time you are done you’d know your footage really well and could recall any given moment by using combos of keyword filters: for example you can show only Farm-John-Intro-Interview-Favorite-Sound bite.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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Thanks for the link, John!
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