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Sequence in Event versus in Project
Out of curiosity… Has anyone yet figured out a “best practices” as to when you should build a timeline as a compound clip in an Event and when to simply build it in the Project library? The point of the question is to try to develop a viable strategy for working with multiple versions and multiple sequences. For instance, when I work on anything long-form, I’ll end up with 50-100 sequences easily, so I’m trying to figure out the best way to do this in FCP X. Building all the Projects in the Project library doesn’t seem viable. Building up a lot of timelines in the Event seems to be one answer, but I’m curious as to the downsides and whether this is really a good idea or not. Thanks.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
22 Replies
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What do you see as not viable about building projects in the project library?
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2012 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press -
It might be good to enumerate the different purposes for creating Compound Clip timelines.
In your case you bring up versioning.Another case would be to build reusable elements across multiple projects such as a show open. That would be in the Event Library of course.
Regarding using the Project Library for versioning, you can create a Folder there for a Job and keep all versions there.
One thing to think about is versioning vs building elements. If your Compound Clip sequences are likely to be used in a Project (master timeline) having them in the Event Library would probably be easier. Basically the differentiator may be between simply versioning vs frequent reuse of parts.
Something else to keep in mind is that if you have Compound Clip sequences as your versioning, you could create an Audition which may make for easy comparison of earlier versions with the current version Project.
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I’ve not tried any serious long form yet but I agree that the project library is not viable. It is just too chunky and clunky. I used CatDv to import some old long form timelines (52min) into FCPX just to see what happens and everything slows to a crawl. It takes minutes to switch between each timeline. Constant beach balling.
I’m guessing that Events will suffer the same problem. One possible strategy is to have one Event to hold media and a separate Event for compound clip sequences. That way you can always unmount the Event holding the compound clip sequences if it slows down. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has used FCPX for long form.
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I’m not getting this. The project library is just a folder structure that can be organized in folders. If you use the folder structure to organize the projects it should be no more complex than a bin structure in earlier versions.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2012 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press -
I’m currently editing a 15min piece about a contingency exercise, where an accident is staged and all of the emergency services have to respond as if it were a real incident. Every thing is closely monitored and the programme I’m cutting is an overview of the whole event, what went right and what went wrong, what can be improved.
2 camera crews were filming continuously for about 4 to 6 hours so a lot of files were created. In order to get a handle on the material I have been creating compound clips in the event library for the first time and it’s been very easy to do and really successful.
As well as creating favorites and smart collections I also whittled these down into compound clips containing the best material. As I like working visually its easy to skim through these clips. So in essence I’m creating highlight selections, or vox pop selections etc.
I also find that after a while a project becomes really unwieldy, lots of hesitation, so to get round this problem I break the timeline into logical compound clip sections and then continue editing by opening these into their own timelines.
To my mind compound clips are at the heart of what FCPX does best both in the event library and within a project, they are really easy to create, to open in their own timelines and to break apart.
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[Tom Wolsky] “What do you see as not viable about building projects in the project library?”
The physical layout on-screen of the project browser makes a display of more than 6-12 visible projects unweildy. Second, each open project has to be loaded into RAM to make it skimmable. The more that are open, the longer it takes to open FCPx. One big help would be if these were able to be loaded in a text (name only) mode and not in a filmstrip view.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Craig Seeman] “It might be good to enumerate the different purposes for creating Compound Clip timelines.
In your case you bring up versioning.”Let me point out three examples:
1. Commercial campaign with multiple spots. For example, 12 x :30 commercials (no common elements). As you cut these, you go through multiple versions until the client locks the cuts. If you have 3 variations to each, that’s 36 projects. You cannot hide anything because at any given time the client may want to go from one to another.
2. Feature film. Typically 100 scenes, where I would cut each scene as a separate project. There may be a few variations to each. Then I start to assemble these into a string out of several scenes and eventually into reels and finally the whole film. Probably 200-300 sequences or more before I’m done.
3. Documentary or corporate video using interviews. I would typically build this as a series of “selects” sequences, whittling down the content by person, topic and eventually organizing the piece. If 10 people were interviewed, the permutations might be 50-100 sequences before all is said and done.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I agree with Oliver. Over all i’ve found that:
1) The Projects Library easily becomes bloated and unusable with large projects. I tried the following test. Imported 3 different 60min projects and duplicated them 10 times each. Each Project took between 1-3 min to open each and the Project library as a whole became slow and sluggish. I tested using the latest iMac with 16GB ram.
2) The use of screen real-estate is terrible. A Project uses three line of horizontal text. In the same space one FCPX project takes up on screen you could have 3 FCP7 sequences. If you’re organising 50+ Projects FCPX’s Project Library has an inefficient use of space no mater how many sub folders you create. Equally frustrating is the fact the Project library can only be displayed in the bottom portion of the screen. Which can only only stretch to about 2/3rds if the screen. In FCP7 I could display my “sequence bins” on a full monitor if I wished. I think visually the Project Library is a bad inflexible design.
3) Personally, I also don’t like that you can’t scan a list of sequences/Projects and have an open timeline at the same time. I see to see things and it annoys me that the Project library list disappears when you open a timeline. But that’s trivial a concern, points 1&2 are the main problems.
John
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[John Moffat] “1) The Projects Library easily becomes bloated and unusable with large projects….
2) The use of screen real-estate is terrible…
3) Personally, I also don’t like that you can’t scan a list of sequences/Projects and have an open timeline at the same time….. “I’m seeing the same things and it makes me pessimistic about using FCP X for these types of projects, but I’m really hoping there are some solutions. That’s why I posted here and not the Debate forum. Given these limitations, does it actually make more sense to build all but the last few sequences as compound clips in an Event and forego the Projects library entirely until you get to the end of the line? In effect, this would treat the sequences like placing them into a Bin in the FCP 7 browser. Is there a huge downside to doing this when you’re talking about anywhere from 30 to 300 edited sequences?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I haven’t tried it yet but Philip Hodgetts Event Manager X might be a good solution. For instance if you’re working on a feature you could select only the sequences or reels you wanted to see in the Event Library, turning them on and off as you go. I plan on giving it a go if I end up using FCPX to cut my next feature.
https://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/EventManagerX/
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California
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