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Linking Multiple Video Items?
“Up to 24 audio items can be linked to a single video item in the Timeline. […]
When you create a merged clip, or link multiple items together in the Timeline, the video item is considered the anchor item to which the sync of all other linked audio items is compared.”
–(FCP User Manual, Vol. II, Chapter 14, Linking and Editing Video and Audio in Sync)So here’s my question: How can I (at least in effect) make an audio item the “anchor”, and have several video items linked to it?
Specifics:
I have audio-only clips captured from our master DAT tapes. Typically, each DAT clip represents one slate #, for which there might be 3-5 takes. I want to be able to put that DAT audio onto a temporary timeline, then sync up the video from the various individual takes (which were each captured separately) on the Video1 track immediately above it. Then — and this is the part where I’m having trouble — I want to link them all and drag everything back to the Browser to create a single, merged clip.
This single, merged clip would consist of the continuous DAT audio for that slate #, plus the corresponding chunks of video for each of the 3-5 (or however-many) takes we did of that particular shot. But right now I can only create a merged clip from timeline items which are officially Cmd-L Linked, and of course that Link command doesn’t work if I have more than one video item selected — even though all the video items are on the same V1 track.
So, is there some sneaky way to make FCP treat multiple video items selected on a particular track as if they were a single video item? That would solve my problem, allowing me to create the merged clip described above. (As opposed to having to Blade cut the start and end of each take on the Timeline, then separately select and Link each take, then individually drag each newly-linked take over to the Browser, thereby creating way more separate merged clips than I’d like to have to deal with right now.)
Would love to hear any suggestions or alternate strategies.
John Bertram
Toronto, Canada -
2 Replies
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Try nesting the audio clip and then linking the other clips to the nest.
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Gave it a try, and maybe my lack of experience with nesting is the problem, but it didn’t seem to help — could only get one of the video items to Link with the audio clip, whether it was nested or not. Also tried nesting the video clips: was able to Link the audio tracks to that “nest”, but still couldn’t figure out how to turn that combo into a merged clip. Even played with nesting the whole thing (the audio clip and all the separate video items I’d synched to it), which kind of achieved the result I was originally looking for, but then I get worried about possible complications down the road if I start taking bits from nested sequences and inserting them into other sequences which in turn may get nested into larger sequences, etc. (Though an experienced analog editor, I’m still pretty new to the finer points of NLE.)
So I’m now thinking my safest route may be to just razor blade them all into separate takes in the Timeline, properly Link the video and audio in each take, then turn them all into new merged clips in the Browser. But would still appreciate any insights, warnings, or alternate suggestions — especially time-saving ones!
(Of course the obvious time-saving suggestion would be: next time you go to the trouble of sending a line out feed from the DAT machine to the camera’s line in, make sure the camera isn’t clipping the hottest audio from each take — yet it all sounds fine on the DAT cassettes, even though the audio captured from both appears to be peaking at the exact same level. Go figure.)
John Bertram
Toronto, Canada
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