Pros of Storylines instead of Compound Clips

[Simon Ubsdell]

I’m liking secondary storylines quite a bit. The main advantage for me is that secondary storylines are “open” and you don’t have to step in to see what’s going on inside. The negative is that you can’t apply global effects to them unlike Compound clips.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Tony Silanskas]

Yah, I do like being able to move clips without opening it. But… it’s just another thing that shows how the FCP X team never fully committed to certain workflows and are still trying to figure out what is the best because why can’t Compound Clips just let us move stuff around in an open fashion? If that is the only reason for secondary storylines, we don’t really need them, do we?

tony

http://www.HungryCliff.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

I have to idea what the answer is though I’m guessing the underlying architecture of storylines is rather different to the nesting architecture of compound clips hence the need for both and why they have different properties. But as you say there does seem to be a measure of redundancy here as if they haven’t quite made up their minds.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[T. Payton]

I have been wondering the same thing, so I wrote down a few of my storyline observations:

1 – In the FCP X storyline based timeline every element has to be pinned to another element – therefore secondary storylines are like tracks in that only the larger element needs to be pinned (connected) not each individual clip.
2 – This facilitates “linking” of clips without loosing the “in line” editing capability.
3 – It lets you build virtual “tracks” that you can solo, disable, etc.
4 – My other observation is that I can’t figure out how to make them work consistency. Sometimes I can make a secondary storyline, some times I can’t.

As I was trying to show someone the storyline idea in FCP X it struck me as very ironic. This entire FCP X editing paradime with the removal of tracks they have made something as equally if not more restrictive than tracks. There are some advantages to both, but why not just give us the option of two types of sequences–track based or story based?

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[Jiggy Gaton]

Somewhere in this pile of stuff here on the cow, I raised a simular question wanting to understand the philosophy of storylines and compound clips. Someone (can’t recall who) validated my assumption that storylines with compound clips where like virtual tracks and nested sequences. But I cannot figure out how to rename a storyline, so I can see this being hard to keep track of if all the storylines are just called “storyline” in the inspector. The help file is useless in explaination and there must be a shortage of words at Apple these days, as they use the word storyline to define storyline, and never really tell you how or why you would use them, and how this new paradigm compares to the old one. I think that’s what we need… how you did things before, and how do you do them now… perhaps they expect Ripple to sort it out for us. Cheers,
Jigs

Phoenix Studios Nepal: A small A/V Production House in Kathmandu.

[Simon Ubsdell]

It’s surely an astonishing irony that a piece of software that everyone is calling a glorified iMovie aimed at kinds in their bedrooms and completely unsuitable for professional use is giving professionals such a hard time in getting to grips with its basic concepts – no criticism intended of iMovie, FCPX, professionals or kids in their bedrooms 😉

It seems that non-primary storylines (Apple need to sort out their descriptive tags better there’s no doubt) can only be made from material that is not already in the primary storyline. If you want to make a range of clips into a new storyline then you need to lift them out of the primary storyline – Opt/Cmd/Up Arrow will do this easily and of course constrain the movement to a vertical one only.

Unfortunately, I can find no way of naming them and I also don’t think you can get them into the Browser, any more than you can get compound clips into the Browser, though it would be a big help if you could do both.

Hence I think non-primary storylines are really just meant to be temporary working arrangements of clips rather than higher order organizational building blocks. That said, I am finding them to be a genuinely useful addition to the toolset.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Jiggy Gaton]

I got a migrane from this and had to stop for a bit. I just wanted to composite an image over the first clip put into the project and add a crossdissolve on the head and tail of the image, and composite the image using a blend mode. I gave up, due to the pain in my temples. This is something that would take 2 seconds in FCP. Can someone list the steps to accomplish this, starting from + new project. thx so much…

PS. This reminds me of the time I had with Aperture 1, trying to figure out the difs between a Library, Project, and Folder, Album, and Library Album. That gave me a headache as well 🙂

Jigs

Phoenix Studios Nepal: A small A/V Production House in Kathmandu.

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Jiggy Gaton] “Can someone list the steps to accomplish this, starting from + new project. thx so much…”

Here you go:

– Select File/New Project and choose the appropriate settings for your needs;
– Select a clip in the Browser and add it to the timeline – at this point you can use either W, D, or E;
– Use the back arrow to get you back to the head of the timeline clip;
– Select your second layer clip in the Browser;
– Use Q to add it over the top of the first clip (to which it will now be connected);
– Select the overlay clip and hit Ctrl/V to open up the animation editor;
– Toggle open the controls for the Opacity and drag the little silders at each end inwards until you have the fades you want;
– Hit Ctrl/V again to clsoe the controls;
– Select the Inspector for the overlay clip and set the Compositing Mode to whichever blend mode takes your fancy.

That’s it. You have to do all that stuff with the opacity sliders because it doesn’t appear that you can add a transition to an overlay clip (as I’m calling it though I know I shouldn’t). You could always keyframe the opacity from with the Inspector but it’s easier to do on the Timeline I think.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Jiggy Gaton]

Simon, I really appreciate that help. For grins, here is my running commentary for the task at hand, and in the end, I did not get what I “changed my mind and wanted”, so how to do that!?!

– Select File/New Project and choose the appropriate settings for your needs;

Why can’t I select a new Default Event for the new project? Why not “depends on first clip” option. I like that one. So I picked it 🙂

– Select a clip in the Browser and add it to the timeline – at this point you can use either W, D, or E;

Which “browser” ? – there are two: Event + Media. Clicking Window / Go to Event Browser does nothing. Media Browser does not have clips (interestingly enough). But u must mean Event Library? I dragged one down from there, and never connected it.

Aside: why the heck is everything arranged by HomeDir/Date or Drive/Date? In Nepal, it’s 2067. This is gunna make me insane.

– Use the back arrow to get you back to the head of the timeline clip;

that worked! now we’re cookin.

– Select your second layer clip in the Browser;

Again, which Browser this time? I had one in another event – ha!

– Use Q to add it over the top of the first clip (to which it will now be connected);

This was were I must have screwed up before, I just dragged from the Event Library/Browser?

– Select the overlay clip and hit Ctrl/V to open up the animation editor;

Oh god, now we are using Windows keys…

– Toggle open the controls for the Opacity and drag the little silders at each end inwards until you have the fades you want;

Ooh, I like that Compositing: Opacity box! To bad the other boxes there don’t work like that.

– Hit Ctrl/V again to clsoe the controls;

ok, but i hate keystrokes…I have carpel tunnel from them.

– Select the Inspector for the overlay clip and set the Compositing Mode to whichever blend mode takes your fancy.

Perfect.

That’s it. You have to do all that stuff with the opacity sliders because it doesn’t appear that you can add a transition to an overlay clip (as I’m calling it though I know I shouldn’t). You could always keyframe the opacity from with the Inspector but it’s easier to do on the Timeline I think.

Huh? What about all the other effects we use instead of just a “cross” / opacity change! I just decided that I want “cube” or “curtains” or some other tacky apple transition…wth. This is completely wackadoo, no? If you can’t add a transition to the “whateveryacallit” above, we are in deep doodoo.

But at least my migrane is gone, all for u!

Cheers,
Jigs

Phoenix Studios Nepal: A small A/V Production House in Kathmandu.

[Jean-françois Robichaud]

You can add a transition to a connected clip if you make it part of a secondary storyline (cmd-G)

I also like the built-opacity faders. The same exists for audio controls. No need to add a keyframe to fade-in or out. All we need is a shortcut to automatically set an audio fade on a selected clip edge. Is there one?