My closer look at FCPX

[Jules Bowman]

Thing is Steve, why did they change it in the first place. I bet you don’t like FC10 BECAUSE you work in an event, you like it because of how it works.

Even Bill (well, perhaps) won’t argue FC10 is great BECAUSE of the new naming convention (though he may start now!)

[Richard Herd]

Just to spite you Jules, Bill will [Jules bowman] “argue FC10 is great BECAUSE of the new naming convention”.

apple owes you at least a free i7, x, compressor, and motion.

[Andy Neil]

[Greg Andonian] “At the end of the day, isn’t this whole favorites thing just a new approach to subclip creation? or am I missing something here?”

You could be forgiven for thinking so, although I would actually argue that keyword collections more appropriately encompass the utility of subclips, and favorites is something slightly new with some overlap into the subclip paradigm.

One of my most common uses for favorites though, is one that might necessitate subclips in another NLE. When I have VO narration for a piece, there are good takes and bad takes. I like to be able to go through the entire clip and favorite out the best takes and then grab them all and drop them into the timeline at once.

In FCP7, I would just lay them into the timeline one at a time instead of bothering with subclips, but then scrubbing back through the clip looking for a particular take was time consuming. But I resisted using subclips because of match back issues, and all the extra button presses that were required to getting back to my VO. FCPX made it much simpler to section off pieces of a clip without extra clicks and I could keep plugging away.

In the end, there’s not a ton of differences, but enough to make favorites more inviting than subclips.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jules bowman] “Thing is Steve, why did they change it in the first place. I bet you don’t like FC10 BECAUSE you work in an event, you like it because of how it works.

Even Bill (well, perhaps) won’t argue FC10 is great BECAUSE of the new naming convention (though he may start now!)”

Not sure if you care about this, but here it is: https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2012/05/some-thought-on-events-and-keyword-collections-in-final-cut-pro-x/

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Greg Andonian] “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.”

There are a couple of ways to view favorites after you have marked them. One is by the little green lines like you have already found, similar to this:

Another way is to sort the browser by favorites, you do that by hitting control f. Every range that was favorited now becomes its own little “clip” in the browser like this:

To get back to all of your clips, you sort the browser by all clips (control-c).

Yet another way is to put the browser in list view, (command-option-2, although I have mapped it to just “2”) and all the favorites are listed in each clip after you twirl down the arrow:

[Greg Andonian] “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. “

Yes. Favorites cannot overlap. This is where you have to figure out how to use them. In and out points in FCP7 don’t overlap either. They simply get recreated.

As I mentioned earlier, I use favorites as both a more permanent place holder, or a temporary one. If they are more temporary, I am constantly clearing the favorite by clicking on it, and hitting the “u” key. When I do end up saving them, it’s usually from a clip that has more than one take in it. I will usually favorite the whole take from beginning to end, then favorite the next take in that clip. If I do need to further define that range, I usually just throw it in the timeline as a connected clip and edit it “q”. Or, I will add a marker “m” that breaks up the favorited range even further. Markers will stay until I delete them. So even if the favorites get moved, lost, stolen or broken, the marker will stay there until I specifically delete it. It will also travel down to the Project as well.

You mentioned that if you want a “keyword collection” of your favorites, you can actually do this, but it takes a few seconds to setup.

You create a “Smart Collection” and call it “Favorites”. You then tell it to search for “all” criteria, add the “ratings” tag, and make sure “Favorites” is selected from the drop down list.

This will then make a keyword collection that will automatically take every single favorite from your project and display them in the “Favorite” Smart Collection. As you add/take away Favorites, they will be added/taken away from the Smart Collection.

Here’s a picture on what that dialog looks like:

You can also set a number of criteria for smart collections. Here’s another picture:

Each one of those criteria on the left also has more options once you add them, like here’s the “Format” function:

You can search for reel number, frame rates, is or is not, audio sample rates, etc, etc.

If you want subclips of all of your best moments from a whole shoot, you can simply make a keyword called “Best stuff ever” or whatever you want. You can then range away on any clip, overlapping or not and simply applying the keyword. You then click on the keyword collection, and all of those ranged clips will be present in that keyword collection.

These methods are very personal and you will have to find out which methods work best, maybe they are none of these at all. I think it is important to understand how favorites, keyword collections, and smart collections all work and how they differ.

If this is of no use, sorry to have bothered you, but maybe it will give you something else to look at when you go back to the Apple store and the iMacs have been rearranged. Again.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Garchow]

I just re-read this post and realized there were some inclarities in my writing.

I am not a trainer, but rather someone who edits.

I apologize if that pictured post added more confusion.

Jeremy

[Elizabeth Watkins]

I marked 100’s of favorites in a project and one day, all my green marks disappeared! Can anyone help. I’m 7 months into editing a documentary on 6 Pearl Harbor survivors and I really need my favorites!

Thank you