What’s the big deal with transitions on connected clips?

[Craig Seeman]

[Andrew Wilson] “I also just don’t get connected clips and secondary storylines. Can it be explained in “FCP 7 speak””

You really should search the forum. It’s an extremely involved debate. It’s like trying to explain Esperanto in a sound bite.

FCXP allows you to construct (composite) in vertical space when needed. It allows you to build in horizontal space when needed (transitions between clips, roll trims etc).

For me, tracks are an artificial relationship when a clip at 1 minute has no technical relationship to a clip at 3 minutes.

Adding a transition to a connected clip allows you to add a horizontal relationship to a clip that had only a vertical relationship. Previously it took a few keystrokes to do that which would be tedious if you had to do it a lot.

Sorry but you should download the trial and go through some training to understand it. A debate will do nothing but make your head spin.

[John Pale]

FCP X is trackless. What you normally put on V1 as the “spine” of your edit is the Primary Storyline in FCPX. (there are exceptions to this, but let’s forget about that now’ for simplicity’s sake)
Any cutaway that you might put on V2 or higher is a connected clip. If you need to do something more sophisticated than a cutaway (from the primary storyline), that needs transitions, you create a secondary storyline.

There is a logic to it, but it’s quite different than what most editors are used to. Now that it’s been released in the wild, the advantages and problems with this approach are now being experienced by a wider user base than in Apples internal testing for the first time. If the product succeeds, and more editors use it, the methodology will evolve…this new feature is the first refinement.

[Tom Wolsky]

This is changed in 10.0.1. Adding a transition will automatically create the storyline for you.

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

[John Pale]

[Tom Wolsky] “This is changed in 10.0.1. Adding a transition will automatically create the storyline for you.”

The OP knew about the change (and copy/pasted it from the Release Notes) but did not understand what the change meant because he is unfamiliar with the trackless editing model in FCPX.

I tried to briefly explain the idea of storylines (admittedly oversimplifying it) and pointed out the change in 10.0.1 was the first refinement of the model. Maybe you can explain it a little better for him?

[Tom Wolsky]

Apologies. Misunderstood.

[Matt Tureck]

You can argue that they took something very simple, audio and video tracks, and made it far more complicated, with storylines, secondary storylines, connected clips, etc.

To answer your question though, imagine that if in FCP 7 you couldn’t dissolve between two clips on V2. That was true in the first version of X. Now you can add a transition to clips that aren’t on the primary story line (think V1), but it transforms it from a connected clip into a secondary storyline. Why we need secondary storylines is anyone’s guess.

[Craig Seeman]

One key difference is the Clip Connections.

Secondary Storyline has one connection for all the clips. It moves as a unit (as it should) since the built horizontal interactions (transitions).

Connected Clips also have a clip connection. Each clip is connected to the primary storyline clip and will move with it.

If each clip in a secondary storyline had its own connection, moving a primary storyline clip would break it apart.

The idea is that things travel as intelligently connected units.