-
HELP! I am a foolish multiclip user…
This is my first multiclip edit and I made some inital mistakes that are now catching up with me. I’m hoping you might have some thoughts on how to ease my pain.
I’m editing a concert with 9 camera ISOs plus a roving camera that wasn’t rolling the whole time (but did have matching TC).
I foolishly created my initial multiclip to include all 9 cameras PLUS the 40 or so smaller clips from the roving camera (recorded over the course of about an hour).
I divided my edit into one sequence per song and started cutting away. After the first few songs things started to really bog down, so I made a new multiclip without the 40 extra roving clips and everything is working a lot smoother now.
My problem is my initial three songs that were cut with the first “big” multiclip — they take forever to load and crash frequently. I even separated them into a separate project (which takes over 10 minutes to load).
When I try to go into the “big” multiclip and delete the extra roving footage (by command-dragging it out of the multiclip window), I usually crash FCP. Is there a way I can modify this multiclip in a different way? Or is there a way I can replace the “big” multiclip in my initial 3 sequences with the more streamlined one? I’ve got over a hundred edits per song (it’s a rock show), and it seems tedious to have to either A) go into each edit and remove the unwanted clips at the risk of crashing, or B) try to replace each clip with a new multiclip.
I know you can collapse and un-collapse the multiclips to edit in the sequence, which I’ve been doing, but I’d like to figure out a way to eliminate the “big” multiclip to make my system a little more stable and keep the project load time under 10 minutes.
Speaking of my system, I’m on a Quad G5 with 8 GB of RAM, Kona LHe card and storage on a 4 TB SAN via Fiber. I’ve got the latest software updates on everything. All my footage is DV (for now).
If you’re still reading, thanks for taking the time and I’d appreciate any thoughts on how to solve this.Andrew
-
3 Replies
-
Andrew,
Sounds like you’re dealing with a lot of footage in the multi-clip. My, admittedly untested, idea for using footage from a camera that doesn’t record the whole time, and / or has timecode breaks in multiclip is to set the footage up the old fashioned FCP “multi-clip” way… stack ’em and sync ’em.
With your matching timecode, you may only need to use one other shot on V1 (say a master shot or drop shot) and sync up your roving clips on V2 in the correct places.
Once that’s done, delete the clip from V1, or turn the track off, and export a reference movie. Import the reference movie and use that for your multi-clip editing.
If the performance isn’t there, you could export self-contained… it seems as if you have the disk space. When it comes to recapturing, since it sounds like you won’t stick with DV, you’ll have to go back to the setup sequence, and recapture from that. You’ll probably also have to re-export, and reconnect your multi-clip to that.
I realize that may sound a little sketchy, and there is a hole or two in that workflow, but that might help your load times / crashes.
Zak
-
There is no reason to go back in time and do the V1 V2 stuff anymore.
FCP’s multicam software works very well. It’s not AVID yet, but it’s
not bad.Andrew,
What I think you should do is make multiclips for each song.
Put all nine cameras and the roving one in there too.
But only one multiclip per song. That should be what,
5 or 6 minutes each? Since making multiclips is fast and easy
in FCP, I’d just make new ones. It shouldn’t take more than
a half hour max, maybe less. Then you are good to go.
Then you’ll never have to open the big multiclip again.One thing I don’t understand though is why your project is
so large and it takes 10 minutes to open.
I just finished a project that has over 40 hours of footage
and 100 multiclips and many sequences. This project
got larger as the weeks went on yes, but it never got over
135 MB and that opens in about 2 minutes.
How large is your project file size and why?
Sequences are the main determining factor of project size.Dan
-
Thanks for your feedback, guys.
Zak, great idea on the roving — I’ll give it a try. I think I can sort out the timecode issues when I rebatch.
Dan, how would I make a multiclip for each song? Do I make subclips from each hour long tape ISO? Or is there another way?
And the bigger question is, once I make a multiclip for each song, how can I preserve the hundreds of edits I made with the “big” multiclip? Could it be as simple as replacing the “big” multiclip footage with the smaller one?
My project size is well over 350MB (scary)… I’ve got the “big” multiclip in six different sequences (but three of those multiclips are collapsed), and that’s pretty much it (aside from the bins for my captured ISOs). Seems like things shouldn’t be that big.
Thanks again for your thoughts and feedback.Andrew
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up