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My closer look at FCPX
Ok, so, in that other thread that asked if your perception of FCPX has changed after a year, I said that I still thought of it as a souped-up iMovie and was criticized for making assumptions without looking at X close enough, and letting the internet do the work for me. So today I took a trip to the Apple store to take a closer look at FCPX and really try to understand things better.
My arrival at the store was a bit jarring- I headed for the table where the iMacs usually were, but when I got closer I noticed it was now filled with iPads. Then I took a look around, and realized nothing was where it was last time I was there, and I felt disoriented. After a few seconds of looking around, I realized that what they had done was reversed the whole layout of the store- it was now a mirror image of what it had been the last time I was there. I then thought, “Geez, this is ridiculous- I just wanted to come check out FCPX, and now they want me to put aside everything I knew about how this Apple store works, and start from scratch…”
So after realizing what had happened I located the iMac table and went over and fired up FCPX. When I did that it brought up that Audi promo that they used in the demo, so I poked around in there a bit.
One thing I really wanted to understand better was the whole issue of the persistent in and out points. I’d looked at this a while back when I was there, but wasn’t able to make sense of it.
I remember a while back there was a monolithic thread about this, in which Jeremy said that it wasn’t a big deal at all, you just need to create a favorite, and it will stay persistent. I remember him saying, “You hit I, you hit O, you hit F”.
So I tried it, but nothing seemed to be happening. I was expecting the yellow outline to appear around the favorite area, but it didn’t- so I wasn’t sure how to use the persistent favorite I had created. I noticed the “mark” menu flash when I hit F, so I thought maybe there was something in there that I was supposed to do- but couldn’t find anything. Then I thought, wait- FCPX is really big on metadata and keyword collections- I bet there’s a keyword collection called “Favorites” that shows up when you make these, and you go in there to access them. So I looked, but there wasn’t one. I was really surprised by that. I knew I’d created a favorite, but it was nowhere to be found. It seemed after being created it had simply disappeared, and had gone up into favorites heaven…
After a few minutes of wondering what the heck was going on, I noticed there was a faint green line above the area that I had turned into a favorite, and when I clicked on that, I DID get the yellow rectangle I had expected to see. I was then able to drag the favorite area onto the timeline. I then created a few more favorites.
At this point I figured I was doing pretty good. Having mastered the art of persistent favorite creation, I had probably gotten further into FCPX than a lot of other people. I still thought it would be better if the clip retained at least the last favorite that was created before clicking on another one and coming back, but I liked the idea of being able to save multiple in and out points in a single clip.
Then I found a flaw in the new approach. I wondered what would happen if two favorite segments overlapped. Would they both still be accessible? How would X handle this? So I set a new in point in the middle of one of them, and a new out point a bit beyond the end of it.
When I hit F, the new favorite merged with the one it was overlapping, and they became one single favorite. I was really disappointed by this. What if you DID want to have two overlapping sections of a clip saved as individual favorites for some reason? or you wanted to save two versions of the same section of footage, but have one be longer than the other? I began to think that it really would be better if you could save each favorite by giving it a name and having it show up in a keyword collection.
There were several things on the timeline I took a closer look at too, but to keep this from turning into a novel I’ll save those for another post. I’ll close by saying I’m glad I took the time to look into X further. I feel like I have a better understanding of what’s going on over there, and there ARE some things I like about it. There aren’t enough of them to pull me away from Premiere, but there are some…
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“THAT’S our fail-safe point. Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.” -
27 Replies
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Glad you’re taking a closer look. You might want to go ahead and grab the free trial of X and actually use it for something small that includes some of your regular workflow in order t really get an idea of how it would work for you. The instore demo is just playing with something they’ve done. And you’re standing there…in a store…with distractions and a unreal sense of what you’re doing.
I’ve been using to more and more and starting to like it! All while learning Avid and PP CS6.
Tony Brittan
Island Shore Peoductions
Posted from iPad, please excuse typos! -
First of all, Greg, I commend you on actually taking a stab at this and trying to understand it, in an Apple Store no less.
I hope to have a response back to you with pictures sometime soon.
A few quick things, favorites can’t overlap. Yes, they have some rules, but they are decent ones in my opinion when you factor in the other sorting and selection tools in X.
A favorite is not a keyword collection. If you want a keyword collection of “favorites” then you’d create a keyword called “favorites” and start there. Favorites play a different role. They can be temporary or static depending on your source footage and editing style and encompass one piece of media. Keyword collections span many pieces of media.
I can’t thank you enough for posting this. You have shown some insight as to why this might be confusing to some folks. I feel like this might now a real dialogue instead of trying to fight my way out the corner.
I’m not saying X is perfect, Greg, it’s not, but it is fundamentally different.
Thank you, and more later.
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Next time do this.
Skim a clip hit I. Skim a bit further hit O.
Then hit Q.
Then click the clip in the timeline and hit SHIFT-F.(Nice post, I laughed at the mirror image conceit!)
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Kudos for dipping your toe in the water, but…
I recommend downloading the free trial and cutting a couple of personal non-paid projects to get a feel for it. It is a different program and until you spend some time with it, you won’t get it and won’t be able to benefit from its many strengths.
Funny thing, though, it wasn’t until we actually started cutting real paid projects that our learning curve escalated and we really began to understand X’s pros and cons.
Is it perfect? Nope. But it is pretty good. And some of things it does well it does very, very well. IMHO, it makes editing faster and somehow more fun, which is not something I could say about FCP 7.
An hour playing with it in a store is bound to be frustrating. You’ve got to put in a few days with it at the very least to even see if you like what it’s good at and can put up with what it is still lacking.
The one thing that gives me some assurance about the future with X is that they have improved/updated it very rapidly. I’m hoping for another update in June (one year anniversary, right?).
Good luck.
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[Greg Andonian] “Then I found a flaw in the new approach. I wondered what would happen if two favorite segments overlapped. Would they both still be accessible? How would X handle this? So I set a new in point in the middle of one of them, and a new out point a bit beyond the end of it.
When I hit F, the new favorite merged with the one it was overlapping, and they became one single favorite. I was really disappointed by this. What if you DID want to have two overlapping sections of a clip saved as individual favorites for some reason? or you wanted to save two versions of the same section of footage, but have one be longer than the other? “
Hi Greg,
It is possible to duplicate the clip in the event folder and apply 2 totally different sets of Favourites to the ‘same’ clip. Or to duplicate it twice etc etc.
This enables you to overlap your selections or favourites.
As I do not use FCPX to import files, but reference media on my drives, this workaround does not result in data being replicated.
I hope you are able to spend more time with FCPX, it took me a long time to reorient myself from FCP7, but I’m now really enjoying the time I spend editing with this program.
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[Michael Hadley] “non-paid projects”
What? Free? If that’s actually the case, I have some footage a client needs editing. I’ll keep the fees, and you can learn 😉
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[Greg Andonian] “When I hit F, the new favorite merged with the one it was overlapping, and they became one single favorite. I was really disappointed by this. What if you DID want to have two overlapping sections of a clip saved as individual favorites for some reason?”
This is where thinking of favorites as persistent INs/OUTs leads to some confusion. But if you consider that in any other NLE, you only get the last IN/OUT saved, then you are still ahead of the game even if you can’t overlap favorites.
I try to imagine favorites in terms of cutting a film. In a typical single camera shoot, there may be many takes of the same scene. As you go through your footage, you find that some takes are better than others so you favorite those takes, and reject the ones that are completely unusable.
In that scenario, you are creating favorites of sections of the footage, not specific INs/OUTs which makes sense that you’d want a consolidation of overlapping favorites.
In places where you want to have overlapping INs/OUTs, a standard keyword will work. Keyword collections can overlap and you can label them specifically to your needs if necessary. They are also nearly as simple to create as a favorite.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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[Andy Neil] “and reject the ones that are completely unusable”
You can also range select footage and delete it and it becomes rejected. Then you can choose to display “hide rejected.” The footage doesn’t go away, it just gets marked with a red bar.
A couple of other niftiness:
In the timeline Range select some stuff then hit CMD-R.
In the timeline select a clip, hit CTRL-S. Then range select some audio and adjust the audio level.
With two clips in the timeline select a couple clip, hit CTRL-S, then, drag the picture.
In the preference window, CMD-, select the editing option to “show detailed trimming feedback.” Back in the timeline, double click the between to clips to reveal the Precision Editor.
Oh yeah, dirty little secret: There are tracks in X. They are called secondary storylines.
These things, for me, have made editing very very fast. Just yesterday I cut a thing in Premiere Pro and it was obvious (from a cutting point of view) how efficient X is.
The other stuff like media management is pretty cool too and personally I like 3rd developers creating things like 7toX, xtopro, and clipexporter.
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[Richard Herd] “Oh yeah, dirty little secret: There are tracks in X. They are called secondary storylines.”
The question I always had about this is: how well does precision editing work in secondary storylines? Or if I place something in a secondary storyline (say a long audio clip) that sets the rythym of the video, how easy is it to cut the primary and other secondary to fit beat within.
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[Clint Wardlow] “how well does precision editing work in secondary storylines?”
Precision editing could be improved in secondary storylines. The precision editor itself only opens in the primary so if you like trimming that way, secondaries are more difficult. However, trim tools and tops and tails all work perfectly fine which is how I trim anyway. Although I’d like the 2-up monitor to be active whenever I’m using the trim tool whether I’m dragging or using keyboard shortcuts.
Also, I would like a keyboard shortcut to toggle between primary and secondary storylines; that would help quite a bit.
But to answer your second question, it’s easy to trim video in the primary to the beat of a song in a secondary.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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