Roles – Checkerboarded dialog

[Tom Wolsky]

Assign a dialogue role with subroles for characters. Checkerboarding can’t really be done without a lot of trouble.

“What if I am overlapping dialog from the same clip?”

You have the same problem with tracks? What track do you put the overlapping dialogue on? What role to you use? Pick one.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press

[Simon Ubsdell]

You would use Subroles – got to Modify/Edit Roles, slect Dialogue and in the pane on the right (Subroles) click the Plus sign to add your new roles, e.g. Dialogue A, Dialogue B, etc. Then you can checkeboard as you like using these.

But beware – you can’t delete custom roles having made them, so create them with care in the first place.

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

[Chris Gormlie]

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

With tracks I would have just simply continued to checker board the audio no matter what the source of the clip; Handles overlapping as needed. Exporting a set of dual mono stems or an XML/EDL was pretty straight forward.

I understand that the traditional checkerboarding method may be moot in FCPx, but I’m still unsure of how I would replicate its functionality. I have to go through the final edit and tag each edit as either A dialog or B dialog? I surly can’t do it up front as I have no idea as to what part of what take I am going to take the talents dialog from? Many takes will have dialog from multiple characters so I can’t really see how I could tag on import.

I am most likely visualizing this all wrong and sitting down with FCPx for a few hours will settle things in my head… but for the moment I remain confused.

[Chris Gormlie]

Yeah. This is pretty much as I imagined it would work.

Looks like the best method would be to wait until pic/audio lock and then do the tagging. Still feels a bit convoluted and much more work than just using tracks. I suppose some workflows have to change to facilitate others though.

Thanks for your answer.

[Simon Ubsdell]

[chris gormlie] “I surly can’t do it up front as I have no idea as to what part of what take I am going to take the talents dialog from?”

No, you are quite right – you can’t do this before you start editing. You would have to select the A/B clips in the timeline and assign their roles – it’s easier to do than it sounds, but it’s not ideal yet.

That said, Roles are pretty powerful, especially they way there are implemented within the Timeline Index – you can solo individual roles which is a very nice idea.

Personally though I really don’t like the idea of exporting master audio out of any NLE except as OMF/AAF for proper finishing in a DAW, but that’s another story 😉 I can understand there are many cases where it’s the only way to work but still …

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

[Chris Gormlie]

wouldn’t OMF/XML/EDL suffer from needing the same technique?

I.E. I’d still need to assign an A&B dialog for the export/import into the DAW? I suppose I could just leave it to the sound guy to checkerboard to his liking… I just don’t think they’re going to be too happy at the extra work 😀

[Simon Ubsdell]

[chris gormlie] “wouldn’t OMF/XML/EDL suffer from needing the same technique?”

If you check out the Automatic Duck export filter (Pro Export FCP 5.0) …
(https://automaticduck.com/products/pefcp/

… you will see that it will keep your tracks in the order that you’ve got them inside FCPX (as far as I can tell). It’s obviously not going to be perfect because the magnetic timeline will populate the highest track with whatever is to hand whenever there’s nothing else there keeping a nice orderly track layout would ne a challenge.

I could be wrong but I don’t think Roles addresses this issue?

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

[Andy Neil]

[chris gormlie] “I suppose I could just leave it to the sound guy to checkerboard to his liking… I just don’t think they’re going to be too happy at the extra work”

Lazy bastards.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Tom Wolsky]

Sounds like billable hours to me.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press