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How can you attach keywords to a clip, so the keywords can be imported in fcpx?
Hi everyone,
This is my first question on a forum ever, because I usually find the answers myself. But after days of watching tutorials and reading stuff I only partly understand, I give up.
I’m struggling with the fcpx workflow.
This is what I want: import my clips, select the parts I want to keep in each clip (some of them are more than 1 hour and I only need 30 seconds), give those selected, minor parts the appropriate keywords, and get rid of all the rest.
This is how I end up doing it now: I import all my video’s, ‘favorite’ the parts I want to keep, put those favorite parts on the timeline, export this timeline (with the format setting on ‘computer’ or it triples the file size – I hope that’s fine), import the file again (in a new event), review the whole thing to put the keywords on it (horror how I have to watch it all twice), anf finally: delete the original event.
Is there really, really, no way to export only the favorite parts of a clip WITH keywords included?? It would save me a lot of time.
I could then just re import those parts in a new event, and all of the keywords would show up in the browser. That would be heaven.I know fcpx wasn’t made to be efficient on file size, but I have too much material I don’t ever want to use anymore. I don’t want to keep it for years on my hard drive.
Thank you for your help.
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10 Replies
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What fornat are your clips- camera originals or rips from YouTube etc? The way you’re doing it now is losing a generation in quality.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training -
If the goal is mostly to import selects, you could use VCC “virtual camera card” to import only parts of very long clips into a temporary library saving imported clips externally then using tags and folder to structure external keywording … and reimport the result in final editing library
Go to
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/
download VCC
FRANCOIS
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Thank you.
Francois Jean: I will definitely try VCC, but it’s still a workaround…
Noah Kadner: I don’t need 4K, 1080p is enough. That’s what I’ve put the camera on. So my files aren’t that big, they become big in fcpx. I hope that is an answer to your question? Or you mean sometime else? -
But which camera? Because some can be ingested in sections directly in FCPX while others can only be imported as complete clips. Also with respect- a 1TB ‘work’ hard drive would cost you less than $100. Does this amount of extra time just to whittle down clips really seem worthwhile? You can always get rid of originals when you’re actually done editing.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training -
Since you don’t mention what your camera original format is , its hard to make some determination as to what the best work flow would be. Some camera formats you can go through your clips in the import window and make selects right there and “import selected” .
Also – in the import window do not check off the optimized media option which turns your camera originals into pro res files, which increases their size.
If you are importing some QT movies then you might need to use VCC to allow you to make selects inside the whole QT movie clip. Without VCC you’re left with importing a whole QT movie clip as your only option.
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Eline, from what I read in your post I have to assume that you import all your video files into your library, with “generate optimized media” checked. What I would suggest instead is to copy the files from your camera card to an external drive first. Even better, probably, would be to use the import window and generate a camera archive on the external disk. From there you can import your stuff into FCPX (without optimizing media), make your selections, favorite ranges, keywords, and all the nice things you can do to organize the material. Nothing is expanded in size or copied, so you can edit right away from your favorites. Finally, in addition to the export you need for the target channel (e.g., YouTube) you also export a masterfile in ProRes422 (and I suggest, without any text overlays etc., which is easy when using roles). Then you have a permanent storage file for the used portions of your edit in HQ and can get rid of the raw material if you wish to. On the other hand, storage is not that expensive, so that you could store the external drive as well.
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Hello,
Thank you everyone. I think I must forget about my ‘desire’ to have everything as efficiently stored as possible. You are right, an extra HD isn’t that much of a cost.
But.I still think it is a pity fcpx doesn’t allow to delete rejected files, whether they are part of a clip, or a whole clip.
I also think it is a pity fcpx doesn’t include the keywords you use in the exported file. If you give, let’s say, the clip between the 1th and the 2nd minute the tag ‘United States’, and between the 3th and the 4th ‘Grand Canyon’ – why doesn’t fcpx keeps this information in the export? If you loose your original files, you still have the masterfiles (I hope). In this case you wouldn’t have lost any keyword information.I’m actually a photographer, and I work a lot with Adobe Lightroom. These options all exist in Lightroom. So if it is possible for pictures, why not for movies…?
Thank you so much for your time. This is a great forum and I still have a lot to read and learn ?
ps I shoot mainly on my Canon 7D
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Part of answering questions is trying to figure out what people are actually trying to do with an app… So if you are looking for persistent tags, you could tag video clips in the finder and then tick off the “keywords from tags” in the import window so when you bring in your clip it will automatically be keyworded with the tag you have given it . You would need to test if the tag persisted with the file after export from FCPX.
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In QT Pro you can set in and outs and just save what you need.
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Hi Eline.
As a thought, there’s no reason you couldn’t use Lightroom as your database, just like you do for stills. My legacy is in stills and Lightroom, and I often use the same workflow for video projects. Once you’ve generated selects you want in your video project, select them out, and kick them out to your NLE of choice, either soft (my recommendation), or by copying them out to a different location (I don’t like this, but you may have your reasons).
The only real downside to this workflow in my book is that LR is a dog for video preview playback.Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au
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