FCPX: changes to one project file, affect another project file?…

[Tom Wolsky]

This can only happen if you’re working with compound clip. In recent versions changes to a compound clip with effect other copies of the same compound clip.

All the best,

Tom

“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press
“Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”

[Shawn Barry]

Wow …that’s pretty non-intuitive.

Okay, so for future reference, if I expand the compound clips in the alt project, and re-compound them as a new clip, they’ll be fine.

“Ohh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. “I’m My Own Grandfather”! Let’s just steal the damn dish and get out of here! Screw history!”
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

[James Cude]

Clip>Reference New Parent Clip will make Compound Clip independent from other instances of it you have in use. Otherwise they will all be connected and changes to one will ripple to all. Sometimes this is precisely what you want- i.e. a reused bumper or scene being color graded in a different Project etc. Sometimes it’s not what you want- so use this functionality to take care of it.

[Shawn Barry]

Thanks, Tom and James, for the help.

Shawn

“Ohh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. “I’m My Own Grandfather”! Let’s just steal the damn dish and get out of here! Screw history!”
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

[Bill Davis]

Shawn,

What you’re running into is one of the primary issues with FCP-X that’s not intiuitive to newcomers, but starts to make HUGE sense as you go along.

Essentially, in X all editing is done by applying metadata changes to an original file. There’s a “flow” to those changes. They flow downstream from Import to Event Browser to Storyline to Share.

The ONLY time that convention is broken, was enabled recently when they made it possible to create a compound clip inside a storyline – and then express all the metadata that formed that compound clip BACK upstream into the Event Browser as a new EB compound clip (with, as noted, the option to break the update link if you want.)

The largest barrier to learning X (in my opinion) is that for decades, EDITS were things that happened exclusively in the Timeline. Period.

So nearly every new X editor comes with that “I need to start my editing in a timeline” thinking in place.

In X this is no longer strictly true. Edits can (and arguably should!) also happen in the Event Browser, and if you make edit decisions THERE – rather than in your timeline – then that work can then flow into as many storylines as you like.

It’s true of edits (trim decisions really) color correction, ranges with keywords, etc.

THIS is one of the central changes in X from all the NLEs before it.

Once you understand this “go with the flow” concept, you can start to see how important it is to work UPSTREAM as much as possible – since everything you do upstream can FLOW downstream to make your subsequent editing chores easier.

Hope this helps.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Shawn Barry]

Thanks Bill – I can’t say editing outside the timeline makes a lot of sense to me now, and this was a bit of a “WTF?” moment, but fortunately it happened on a project that makes it annoying, more than tragic.

I’ll start by avoiding compound clips until I understand their purpose better.

Shawn

“Ohh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. “I’m My Own Grandfather”! Let’s just steal the damn dish and get out of here! Screw history!”
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

[Bill Davis]

[Shawn Barry] “Thanks Bill – I can’t say editing outside the timeline makes a lot of sense to me now, and this was a bit of a “WTF?” moment, but fortunately it happened on a project that makes it annoying, more than tragic.
“

Maybe this will help.

There’s two ways to cook.

You can gather a bunch of ingredients – and custom arrange them into dishes one at a time.

But sometimes it makes HUGE sense to create dishes in a “production kitchen” style. Think of Mexican food as an example. They have basic pre-built foods – tamales, red or green chili con carne, steam table pots of rice and beans, etc flour and corn tortillas. Then based on the order that comes in, they combine those elements into a custom plate. It’s incredibly more efficient than scratch cooking all the ingredients one at a time “to order.”

The Event Browser can be seen as a set of shelves where you store your pre-cooked ingredients. Video with color correction on this shelf. Audio with EQ applied on that one. Etc. Then as you build your projects, when you grab those ingredients you’re no longer starting from scratch. You’re using ingredients that have already been pre-cooked into a tasty state in order to to create custom plates.

That’s kinda sorta (lamely) one way the Event Browser can be viewed in the X workflow.

When you embrace it, it’s SUPER efficient since all that stuff is available to ALL your projects. to further torture the cooking analogy you can auto pre-measure and customize something like a cup of green chills (think, maybe a client ID slate) – and just plop it into every recipe that would benefit from that.

Every NLE can do a version of this. But in X, that custom measured item (say, exactly one cup of green chilis) is in a database where you can tag it with “GC” and call it up for use in an instant.

FWIW.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Shawn Barry]

Okay, then to pick your brain a little further (I appreciate you taking the time to type out long answers, and have discussion), here’s the next “disconnect” point for me – where does this editing, colour correction and assembly happen, if not in the timeline, or related to a project?

Shawn

“Ohh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. “I’m My Own Grandfather”! Let’s just steal the damn dish and get out of here! Screw history!”
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

[Atilio Menéndez]

This issue came up a few weeks ago. See this thread: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/15302
When duplicating any project which has compound clips, you must remember to choose “duplicate project and used clips” and under that “multicam and compound clips only”.

[Bill Davis]

[Shawn Barry] “Okay, then to pick your brain a little further (I appreciate you taking the time to type out long answers, and have discussion), here’s the next “disconnect” point for me – where does this editing, colour correction and assembly happen, if not in the timeline, or related to a project?”

It happens IN the Event Browser.

If you select the ENTIRE clip – you can apply a global change to it. Once you select the clip, show the Inspector Tab – (In 10.0.7 second from the right icon in the center bar of the HUD to the right of the Timecode Display) and then in the info window you can Changes to it.

If you want to affect just a PART of the clip – you just set IN and OUT points to define a range. Then Apply any keyword you like to put it in a Smart Collection. That simple thing is very powerful, because the setting of the in and out point creates a PERSISTENT edit selection that shows up in that collection. While you can elect to do this with handles and make it a rough selection, you can also take the time to make that range selection with great precision, and if you do, you’ve just PRE-EDITED your original footage – since you can drag that “edit” to any Storyline. So you now can pre-trim, whatever clips in whatever smart collections you want. Doing this creates pre-edit decisions that STICK to your clips in their collections.. And, of course, there’s no reason you use the SAME source footage in multiple Smart Collections and apply DIFFERENT trims or effects to them there.

Now Color Correction is a bit more complex. There is a basic color correction available directly in the Event Browser, but it’s limited to a rough color balancing based on common issues like improper white balance.

If you need more sophisticated color correction, you’ll have to apply it in a Storyline then make a New Compound Clip out of it – a step that makes a separate clip with the changes aviailable via the event browser.

The overall idea is that it’s possible to do a LOT of work in the EB prior to creating your actual working storyline, and if you do so, then the prep work is saved and becomes useful in every subsequent storyline you might wish to create.

The point is that these changes aren’t related to the PROJECT. They’re related to the EVENT. And the EVENT sits upstream of all your projects and can provide assets to all of your projects as needed.

Hope that helps.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.