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newbie question about how to work in the timeline
I’ve finished my rough draft of my first FCP project. Now I’m trying to go back and shorten up things a bit, but find the only way I know to handle the changes very tedious. I’ve already added music to most scenes, so when I shorten a clip and try to delete the space created b/t clips FCP will not allow it. If I lock the track with the music then I can perform this action, but then the rest of the clips on the track with the music go out of sync. So I have to do one of the following:
1) Shorten the music clip temporarily then drag it back to where it should end,
2) Make a new track for each music clip, or
3) Do some extensive lassoing and selecting and drag all clips over to fill the space created by the shortened clip
Each of these takes quite some time and is a major drag when you want to play around with things and tweak them back and forth. My previous NLE seemed to encourage more audio tracks and had a plugin to select all clips after a certain point. These things made it easier to deal with timeline changes.
So, is there some way in FCP that I can make things move more smoothly when I want to make these types of changes on the timeline? Thanks ahead of time for any help! -
8 Replies
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That sound a lot like what I do. Making changes…shortening scenes, ALWAYS messes with music and timing, which is one reason making changes is often very difficult.
I usually chop out the sections I need to chop then fix all the cuts I made in the music tracks.
Who said editing was easy? (That might have to be my standard signature…)
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Sounds like you need the “select all tracks forward” tool. You access it by clicking and holding on the third button from the top of the toolbar until the tool options slide out. Select the tool that looks like two arrows pointing left. You can also access it by pressing “t” 4 times on the keyboard.
Good luck.
Arthur Vibert
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[mus man] “Now I’m trying to go back and shorten up things a bit, but find the only way I know to handle the changes very tedious. I’ve already added music to most scenes, so when I shorten a clip and try to delete the space created b/t clips FCP will not allow it. If I lock the track with the music then I can perform this action, but then the rest of the clips on the track with the music go out of sync”
Mus,
The main rules to remember in FCP is that “lift” and “extract” functions honor the linking and track Auto-Selection settings. A-S are the little square icons on the left of the timeline by each track. If you have several tracks within the area you have marked, FCP will delete and leave a gap if all of the tracks don’t have A-S enabled. If only one is enabled, you will have a gap that won’t be closed, if linking is turned on. If you have all the tracks with A-S enabled, then you’ll get an “extract” – deletion and the gap is closed. Remember that under these conditions, the big delete key (next to +) will act as a lift, while the del/rub-out key (under the help key) will extract. To override the A-S functions, lock the track(s).
So for example, you have 1 video track, 2 dialogue tracks and 2 music tracks. You want to make a trim but not cut out the music at that spot. Turn A-S on for all tracks, lock the music tracks, mark in/out and hit the del/rub-out key. Your picture and 2 dialogue tracks will have the piece delected and they will slide to the left to close the gap. Alternately, you could turn off A-S for the music tracks instead of locking, since they aren’t linked to the video or dialogue clips, but that’s just more keystrokes.
Hope this helps,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I,m a “t” four times kind of guy. If I understand you correctly, I think this is how I handel such things.
If you are cutting a hole in the middle of something and you have some music which you want kept I would chop the hole, use the “t” (remembeer to hit the ‘a” after your finished with the “t”) hit the “n” to turn off and on snapping, off in this case, and move the stuff on the right, left over the hole. If you want some of the music from the left and have over writen it with this “t” thing, before you move the chunk to the left, move the sound trakcs on the right down and out of the way of the music to the left. This way you get both things and can twidle with them after the move.
It does sound like simple stuff.
Chris
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“Lift” and “Extract”? What system are YOU editing on? This is referred to a “Delete” and a “Ripple Delete” in FCP land. 😉
Kevin Monahan
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro
fcpworld.com -
Or right : )
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[Kevin Monahan] “”Lift” and “Extract”? What system are YOU editing on?”
At least I’ve resisted the temptation to completely remap the keyboard!
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Thank you all for the help! I find FCP tricky b/c it has so many modes and ways of doing things that it’s hard for me to remember them all and use the proper technique at the proper time, etc. Kind of like using Photoshop, if i don’t use it for a while I find I have to practically relearn the whole program.
Anyway, thanks again for all the help! I should be moving faster now.
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