Need advice with Time Remapping –

[Lars Fuchs]

One thing I almost always do is make a subclip of the footage I want to manipulate with time-remapping. The time-remap graph scales to the size of the ENTIRE source clip (including the handles) so if you’re using clip that several minutes long or longer the graph covers just too much material to be precise. Its easiest if you subclip only the frames you want, but then you lose handles. (The difference between avid and fcp subclipping will have to be the subject of another thread.)

Another thing you can do is enlarge the viewer window to as big as you can make it on your monitor. Then enlarge the time-remap portion of the motion tab by pulling down on the baseline so that the time-remap is as big as possible. that will give you more room to work. If you find yourself doing this a lot, set up a window layout that way, and one for your normal workflow. If you name the layouts so that they’re alphabetically the first two of all your layouts, you can use the keyboard shortcuts to switch back and forth between them.

You can also use the time remap tools (hit ‘S’ three times) in the timeline to adjust the timing of the clip, but I haven’t been able to get my head round them. The time remapping is counter-intuitive for an ex-Avid head like myself, so I generally don’t use them. But the manual makes them sound really cool. The can be used to do exactly what you describe: pin a particular frame in a clip to a particular time in the sequence.

Good luck!

[Tom Wolsky]

Subclipping an FCP clip will not have any effect on time remapping. It still accesses the whole media file. You have to export the portion you want to time remap and then reimport the file.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Lars Fuchs]

[Tom Wolsky] “Subclipping an FCP clip will not have any effect on time remapping. It still accesses the whole media file. You have to export the portion you want to time remap and then reimport the file.”

Actually, I just checked this. In FCP 6.0.3, using NTSC DV footage, I created a 3:28 subclip from a master clip 8:13:21 in length. I edited the subclip into the sequence; then I cut the same media into the sequence from the original master clip with the same mark-in and out that I used to create the subclip. I opened each in turn in the viewer by double-clicking.

The subclip behaved as I expected – the start of the ramp was frame 0 (the first frame of the sub) and the top of the ramp was frame 118 (3:28). When I opened the master clip the start of the ramp was frame 7166, and the last 7284, or 118 frames, out of a scale that went from 0 to 14795. Visually they were quite different: the subclip displayed a nice nearly 45 degree ramp, while the master clip was basically a horizontal line.

So indeed, you will get more precision if you subclip your footage before time-remapping it, at least if the source clip is considerably longer relative to the clip length in the timeline.

Here are some screen grabs:
Subclip:

Master Clip: