Okay, one more time this is a clip and this is a transition

[Jack Fox]

I don’t expect imovie to be more sophisticated, only less inhibited. And, I can’t argue with the knowledge that makes cinema what it is today. How about this: What if there was an effect that could be inserted into the middle of a long line of ropes? It would have warnings that existing “used” frames will be affected and the sequence length will change, would this be offensive to pundit sensibility, if only available as an option?

jmf

[Walter Biscardi]

[jmf] “How about this: What if there was an effect that could be inserted into the middle of a long line of ropes? It would have warnings that existing “used” frames will be affected and the sequence length will change, would this be offensive to pundit sensibility, if only available as an option?”

I can’t honestly think of a time I have ever wanted or would need to have that feature available. We always capture plenty of handles with our footage so even when we do drop a transition across multiple clips, it’s not an issue, there’s at least 3 – 10 seconds of handles on either end of the clip.

I don’t know of any editors who would capture exactly the in and out point they need for clips because that would always screw you when it comes to transitions. The answer is simply to ensure you have handles on every clip, that’s one of the jobs of the editor or edit assist. If you get a log sheet with specific ins and outs, go ahead and log them that way, but be sure to tell FCP to add 1 – 10 second handles on every clip to allow for transitions.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Jack Fox]

I am so impressed with patience and expertise of those who contributed to this thread. Your persistence beat the c__p out of an ugly stain in my editing awareness. Some of us are just not satisfied by learning technique by rote; for me, only by understanding a concept thoroughly will I accept such a basic process. Now, by knowing the etymology of a transition, I understand its consequence, place and placement in the precious string of frames. Thank you.

jmf

[David Roth weiss]

[jmf] “only by understanding a concept thoroughly will I accept such a basic process”

Bingo!!! Once you truly understand the paradigm it makes perfect sense, and its very precise.

In the old days (just a decade ago) everyone learned to edit film first, then video. In traditional film editing any film frame can only be used once, and on top of that, since transitions were printed using an expensive optical printing process, editors had to be extremely precise in setting up the transition for the people at the lab to insure the transition would work properly. Video editing, especially non-linear editing is a real luxury in that editors can try all these things over and over again until they get it right, but unfortunately that has left many without any real understanding. So, its kind like five steps forward and one step back…

DRW

[Jonkap]

i actually can’t even wrap my head around what the software would actually do if it auto fixed a transition. what would happen to the 12 tracks of audio lying underneath in various positions? what about the score?

when you get your first timeline with 6 video tracks and 16 audio tracks you’ll completely understand why FCP doesn’t auto-change anything in the timeline that you don’t specifically tell it to do. seriously. i’m not being snarky. you’ll just see what i’m saying.

jk

[Steve Connor]

I’m glad FCP doesn’t do it ! after a long session where you not paying as much attention as you should, it would be very easy to get into trouble if FCP just pulld your sequence up by 15 frames every now and then!