Some Qs from former FCP 7 user

[Michael Hadley]

Pro Versioner from Digital Rebellion (and all their maintenance apps) are fantastic. Don’t leave home without them.

[Jeff Kirkland]

I’m not sure I see how creating a compound clip as a snapshot of the current state of a project can slow down the system. It’s just sitting in an event minding its own business, not actually being used anywhere unless you decide to access it’s contents to revert some or all of your project, and then you’re adding the contents of the clip, not the compound clip itself.

Which is not to say there’s anything wrong with duplicating the project or using a backup app or whatever works but I have a 90 minute multicam concert project in front of me that has eleven compound clips in an event as snapshots of my progress and I don’t see any signs of the system slowing down.

Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland

[Sascha Engel]

Thanx so much for all the great feedback and App suggestions. Really helpful and lots of new info.
The FCPX Forum is great – very helpful folks. 🙂

[Sascha Engel]

I might come over as really dumb right now: But could you try to explain it once more.
I’m not sure i understand it still, specially the part of taking a Snapshot.
Thanx for your patience:-).

Greetings,

Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang

[Brett Sherman]

[Michael Hadley] “Pro Versioner from Digital Rebellion (and all their maintenance apps) are fantastic. Don’t leave home without them.”

I used to use Pro Versioner, but it became too buggy in the latest update. I’ve found it creates endless iterations of the same project or event (I once counted 50 separate folders for one). Even worse I’ve also found it to massively slow down the computer at times, with up to 90% of processor use. And quiting the process doesn’t fix it. THe only thing that works is a reboot until the problem comes back again. I’ve reported these bugs to Digital Rebellion, but have not heard back. If they fix it I’ll return because it really is dummy proof. But for now I’m on Backup for Final Cut Pro which I’m not crazy about since you have to manually setup everything. If you accidentally forget to set it up, or fail to launch it, you are SOL.

[David Eaks]

I think Jeff’s “compound clips as snapshots” method could be handy, but it is ONLY to be used once you have a firm grasp on how compound clips work.

What he is saying is that you can select everything in the timeline and create a new compound clip (compound clips are saved to your event and you’d give it a name identifying the version, if you go into the compound clip and make changes it will alter every instance of that compound clip on every timeline it is in). The idea is not to actually use the compound clip in any timeline, but to add the compound clip to a timeline and choose “break apart clip items”. It will remove the “compounding” so that all the clips are back on the timeline, just like it was before creating the compound clip in the first place. Once broken apart, there is no longer any relationship between the clips on your timeline and the compound clip in the event. So, the compound clip is like a “holding cell” for a version of your edit or a “snapshot”.

So, compound the entire timeline and give it a version name, break apart and continue editing, compound it all again at another meaningful point in the edit (this is now snapshot 2), break apart and continue editing, repeat. If you want to go back to an older edit you’d add the appropriate compound to an empty timeline and choose “break apart clips items” and start editing away.

I’d really recommend just using duplicate project to create versions of your edit. Much more straight forward and simple and without many potentially devastating user error problems.

I use compound clips to “store” several little groups of titles/effects/graphics, kept in an event called “All Favorites”. For example, a group of three custom titles over a single background graphic, I can open the compound clip in its timeline, copy whichever little title group I want, then go paste it in the project I’m working on. The compound clip itself is never actually edited into a timeline. It’s a great way to save a custom template with several elements already put together.

[Jeff Kirkland] “I’d argue that it’s not prosumer to provide them, just maybe a little prosumer to use them. But guilty as charged.”

Agreed, guilty. But why do people think that FCPX is prosumer because it has templates available? No other “professional” application has ever included a template that maybe wouldn’t give the best impression of your companies work if it was use in your project? Thats laughable.

[Ronny Courtens] “I hardly ever use the templates, except when I see one that offers a pretty good starting point for a certain job we have to do. Then I open it in Motion to tweak and customize it and I save the custom template straight from Motion into the FCPX browser for further use. This can be a huge time-saver on fast turnaround projects while the client does get his “own” look. “

This is where the real power is, which in my mind proves beyond any doubt that it is intended for professional use. Creating your own template for use right in FCPX. I just made a simple transition that has Motions 3D Throw behavior parameters published and a cross dissolve at the end. So it does a customizable zoom before a cross dissolve at the end. I used to keyframe the same thing in the timeline fairly often when editing multicam projects. Now the effect is just a click away.

[Sascha Engel]

Thanx for the in depth explanation!!!

Greetings,

Sascha Engel
TIME BANDITZ Productions
http://www.youtube.com/taikang

[Jeff Kirkland]

As always, it’s whatever works for you. All methods mentioned here are perfectly valid. I prefer the compound clip snapshots because I find that hitting a couple of keystrokes, giving the snapshot a name,then using another keyboard command to break it apart, is less disruptive to my editing than exiting the timeline, duplicating and then coming back in. Plus I can snapshot just part of the timeline if that’s all I need to do.

Which is not to say I never duplicate projects but I personally prefer not to have a cluttered project browser.

Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland