Searching for Specific Marker in Event Browser Clips

[Doug Metz]

The previous behavior of returning entire clips (with all of their associated keywords, markers, etc. hidden behind the disclosure triangle) remains in 10.3.2

Doug Metz

Anode

[Michael Angelo]

Searching for markers in events still only pulls clips.

Whats worse is that not only does FCPX still not allow you to custom color code markers etc like FCP7 but Apple decided to remove ALL color coding so all icons in 10.3 are white. A maddening design choice to make things pretty but less functional.

Meanwhile we’ll keep trucking, hope color coding and customization comes back.

Harvest the compromises…

[Adam Berlingeri]

I may have found a slightly simpler method for this without having to keyword the favorites.

If you make all your favorites and change the names to the labels you want, you can click the Clip Filtering drop-down and change it from “All Clips” or “Hide Rejected” to “Favorites“. This will show you a copy of the clip for each instance where you marked a favorite and those will be searchable (see screenshots).

The only drawback is you still have to expand the clip name to see the favorite inside of it, but I think this still lowers the number of steps you have to go through overall. I hope this helps someone out. Good to know I’m not the only one out there facing this issue.

[Fedor Von hengstenberg]

Sorry, should I misunderstand your point. But when I go to a clip, either in the browser or inthe storyline, and add a marker by hitting M twice, I can enter a name or a phrase into the marker title field. Then there are two ways to find this moment in time, as you called it earlier. i) Clip in the storyline: Search the timeline index for the word/phrase. The marker will be highlighted int he index, so that you can click on it, and there you are. ii) Clip in the browser: Type the word/phrase into the search field. The browser in list view will show the clip, as you said, and when you open the disclosure triangle you will find the marker highlighted. Click on it and you are at your desired spot.

[Chris Faber]

Hi Fedor!

It’s always fun when I get a response to this thread even years after I posted it.

With respect to your first method, the whole point is being able to do it directly in the browser and not have to put it into a timeline. You find it in the browser, type w and in it goes into the video you’re creating. Having the clip in the timeline, or *a* timeline isn’t helpful for that.

With regard to your second method, two things: yes, it finds the clip, but I think you are mistaken about the marker being highlighted: that’s not something I see.

Either way, with respect to the former part of your second method, as I pointed out in earlier posts yes it pulls up the clip, but if you have multiple markers on that clip (say the clip is a 45 minute interview), you have to look through it by eye to find the marker. In contrast, name your Favorites, and later when you search for words in that name — and filter for favorites — just those favorites appear. So type “dog cries” in the search field and the only thing that is called up are all favorites that have the words “dog cries” in them — probably just one. Then you have the moment you are looking for.

You can’t do this with markers. You search for words in markers and what happens is, as you say, clips with that marker — and perhaps three dozen more — pop up.

It’s five years since I posted this and I still can’t believe that when the favorites appear, they do with the clip names they are one, and with the favorites under them with a closed discloser triangle. I want to see the name of the favorite immediately; that’s what I was searching for. One trick on this if you have any number of them, do ‘select all’ — command A — then hit the right arrow, and all of the discloser triangles spin open to show the favorites below them.

Warm regards,

Chris

Chris Faber
Faber Productions
chris.f@faberproductions.com
http://www.faberproductions.com

[Daniel Pisterzi]

Hey all,

I think I found a solution (at least it works for me). You cannot search markers in the main search dialogue (that I know of), however, you can search it in your timeline’s index.

You can have a series of markers and when you pop open the index tab on the bottom left, you can search there in the “tags” section. When you click on one, it takes you right to that place in the timeline.

For me this allows me to make the notes I need for a long interview clip and find it fast. You just need to know which timeline or clip you want to search. Heck, you could put all your B-roll in a single timeline and use it as a way to index footage, too. Hope that helps!

Daniel

[Nick Natteau]

Hey guys, having read through most of this thread I’d like to propose one solution which happens to be working out great for me. I too am frustrated by FCPX being too limited in its search capacity when it comes to keywords and markers in terms of finding just the clip but not the specific range. So here’s what worked out for me.

I happen to be working on a long format WWII documentary that involves having to log many hours news reel footage from sources like America’s “Why We Fight” series and Germany’s “Deutsche Wochenschau”. I initially ended up creating hundreds of keywords which was insane. I then realized that rather than create so many keywords, the best strategy was to have as few keywords as possible and instead use the Notes Field to define what those keyworded ranges contain.

For example, in a news reel like “Victory in the West” I repeatedly use just a few keywords like “blitzkrieg, luftwaffe, etc,” that get repeated dozens of times. But in the Notes field I describe the specific scene for each instant of the same keyword. And because the Notes field is searchable, all I have to do is create a smart list for keywords, and any word I entered into the Notes field instantly pulls up just the keyword corresponding to that specific word in the Notes field. It works perfectly.

So the keyword “blitzkrieg” may be repeated 50 or more times in that newsreel. But having typed “Dunkirk, stukas dive bombing” in just one of those keyworded instances will pull up just that single keyworded range (not the entire clip) when I enter the same words in the Search Filter bar.

Having said all this, I really hope Apple improves the search filter. I agree that seeing the name of the clip in the List View mode of the Browser repeated hundreds of times instead of the keywords (or markers) is pointless. There needs to be a way to not see the clip names but just the keyworded ranges or markers without always having to twiddle open all those disclosure triangles. Until Apple improves the search mechanism to cover markers the way we would like, my advice would be to use keywords with corresponding specific words in the Notes field to find just that one instance you need. Hope that helps.

[Carmi Weinzweig]

[Nick Natteau] “I initially ended up creating hundreds of keywords which was insane. I then realized that rather than create so many keywords, the best strategy was to have as few keywords as possible and instead use the Notes Field to define what those keyworded ranges contain. “

I have been helping a friend working on a long form documentary and that was how we decided to arrange things as well. It seems to work really well for him. He also uses Producer’s Best Friend from Intelligent Assistance to pull some of the data out of the project in order to search using Numbers. We are waiting on Kopto for a new version of Shot Notes X that can create multiple favorites in a single clip with the appropriate notes fields.