Working with merged clips

[Nick Meyers]

when you say “unlocked” i think you might be meaning “un-linked”
as in the audio clip is linked (or in this case, not linked) to the picture clip

only one part of the audio can remain linked to the picture.
that’s the way it is.

the workaround would depend on what you are trying to do.
why are you cutting the audio, but wanting all parts linked?

if it’s to get rid of an unwanted part of the audio, you could keyframe a dip in the volume.
if it’s to adjust sync you have a bigger problem.

nick

[Jonno Woodford-robsinon]

Hi Nick,

I am the editor on the project Adam is referring to.

[Nick Meyers] “if it’s to get rid of an unwanted part of the audio, you could keyframe a dip in the volume.
if it’s to adjust sync you have a bigger problem.”

To adjust sync. It’s not so much that clips become ‘un-locked’ (also an issue), but if for some reason I have to slip the sound from the picture, the clips often don’t show the red ‘sync offset number’ that I have come to rely on. It is also a little cumbersome having to re-lock the clip to make it select both pics and sound in order to trim both simultaneously etc.

It seems that over time random clips will lose their ‘merged’ quality and therefore not show the sync loss offset if slipped (whether sound is deleted from the middle of a clip or not).

Another symptom is that sometimes when I do the equivalent of ‘Find Clip in Browser’ (not sure exact term off hand), FCP tells me the clip is not in the project (I ask my self: well how did I cut it into my timeline then?!) and asks if i’d like to create it. If I say yes, it makes a new clip with identical information except that instead of having 2 or more audio tracks, it only has 1. Occasionally it will leave the Description and Log Note columns empty, but not always.

On previous projects where the picture and sound were captured together (ie, from tape formats) I haven’t encountered this problem.

Is there something we are not doing correctly when merging the clips?

If not, do you know if FCP 7 has addressed the issue?

Thanks for your help.

Jonno

[Nick Meyers]

Hi, Jonno.

“To adjust sync”

yoiks! i would have tried to fix that first.
i mean, if your picture and sound don’t sync, it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
if it isnt, there’d be repercussions all through the edit, as you know

but maybe you didn’t have time,
or the issue couldn’t be fixed???
either way here you are, dealing with repercussions…

“if for some reason I have to slip the sound from the picture,
the clips often don’t show the red ‘sync offset number’ that I have come to rely on.”

maybe that section was never linked to the video in the first place?
would depend on the syncing process:

– if the audio is linked, THEN split up for re-syncing, you should get the red warnings.

– if the audio is split and synched, THEN one part of it linked,
the other parts will never show the warning.

either way, you cant really “rely” on the sync warning on this film ,
as all your clips will have sections that will DISPLAY as out of sync, while they are actually IN sync.

“It is also a little cumbersome having to re-lock the clip to make it select both pics and sound in order to trim both simultaneously etc. ”

i wouldn’t bother re-linking.
for starters, re-linking really WILL get rid of the red sync warning.
try it: shift some audio separate to the video so you get the red warning.
then un-link and re-link.
warning disappears.

and as you say, it’s just another step.

rather tan re-linking, simply select the video, hold apple, then also select the audio. (Or vica-versa)
there’ most likely come a time when a lot of your trims will be a-synchronous anyway, so it’ll just become a habit.

“Another symptom is that sometimes when I do the equivalent of ‘Find Clip in Browser’ (not sure exact term off hand), FCP tells me the clip is not in the project”

ok, this is another issue altogether.
(i don’t think they are related.)

this is the Master / Affiliate relationships in the project going awry.

this M/A relationship can be pretty fragile in FCP.
oh… you should know that it only works WITHIN a project.
FCP cant track clips cut from one project into another,
so if your rushes are in one project, an your cut sequences in another, then it just wont work.

as i as saying the M/A relationship can also be broken.
on the feature i was cutting last year, my assistant would prep the rushes into their relevant scenes and give them to me in a daily project.

they were formated into Bins AND sequences.
the M/A relationship worked in her project,
but when i copied them across into my edit projects,
it didn’t.

solution was to copy the Bins and Sequences separately.
THEN it worked in my project.

Multiclips were part of the problem, too (i guess in some way they are “collections” of clips, like sequences are)
so if i wanted to have multiclips, and their “constituent” clips, and be able to match back to either,
i had to copy them separately, too.

finally, the links can just break.
i’ve opened projects and gotten a warning that my Master Affiliate relationships had become corrupted.
d’oh!

i managed to “fix” that by closing without saving, and opening on another machine (that film had shared storage)
it opened fine on the other machine,
then opened ok on my machine… go figure.

good thing about a feature (drama, anyway) is the level of organization.
you pretty much know what scene you are working on (especially if you are using american slating)
so you can easily find the right bin in the browser.

hope that helps a little,
nick

[Jonno Woodford-robsinon]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your detailed reply.

Just to set your mind at ease, the sync of the merged clips is not slipping or drifting, I meant an intentional slip – sometimes when I want to tighten a cut between 2 lines of dialogue, I lock the picture track, mark where I want the next line to start, mark out on the very beginning of the next line, ripple cut (and then roll/slip the cut point a few frames earlier), then lock audio, then mark where I want the picture to cut, then advance the ‘red sync offset amount’, (go back one frame) mark out, ripple cut and hey presto, i’m back in sync and all looks good. I do this mainly during the assembly before I have too many tracks to deal with, whereby I use the ‘COMMAND-Click’ a-synchronous technique you described. I find it quite a quick way to work at this stage in the process.

“maybe that section was never linked to the video in the first place?
would depend on the syncing process:”

All our clips have been merged using the merge clip function. Some of them have had to be offset a frame or 2 due to the timecode lockets not always lining up accurately. When this occurs, we discover it after the clip is merged. we put it on the timeline, slip the sound and then COMMAND-L the clip, drag it back to a bin and get rid of the previously merged clip. We are assuming it is now merged due to the fact it’s icon looks exactly like a merged and/or captured clip.

Is there any reason the merged clips become unlinked/unlocked while on the timeline even if I haven’t removed any sections of sound?

As for the “Find Clip in Browser” issue, thanks for the tip. We are using 2 projects: 1 for importing the RED rushes and Audio, the other for cutting with.

Do you think the following will solve my ‘Find Clip in Browser’ issue: copy the ‘import’ project, rename it as the ‘cutting’ project, open it, then open my original cutting project and move all my bins to the renamed import project, then delete all the import bins so the Match command doesn’t go looking for the rushes day bins.

Yes we’re using the American slating system – I prefer it too (except FCP puts the first slate at the end of all the other slates ‘cos it doesn’t have a letter – we make our first slate with a “-” to fix this, eg: slate 23 would go like this: 23-, 23A, 23B, 23C etc). I prefer just to hit my “Find Clip in Browser” button and instantly be in the scene bin to choose another clip – way quicker than scrolling through the browser to find it manually.

I sure hope FCP 7 is more robust than v6, these little anomalies can become rather frustrating when they present themselves too frequently.

Thanks again for your help with our issues. It’s very much appreciated

cheers

Jonno

[Nick Meyers]

Hi, Jonno.

“Is there any reason the merged clips become unlinked/unlocked while on the timeline even if I haven’t removed any sections of sound?”

in my experience clips do become un-linked without you expecting them to,
almost “while you aren’t looking”

i’m NOT saying that it just happens on it’s own accord,
but that the things we do while editing,
the many, many things that we do instinctively without thinking about them,
often produce situations whereby the audio becomes un-linked.

i will often find clips that are un-linked,
and probably became unlinked a long time previously,
and i cant remember what it is i’ve been doing.

one small example that i just DID notice:
i had a liked clip in the timeline with some picture over-hanging the audio at the head of the clip.
i marked it with in / outs and did a ripple delete,
and the clip lost it’s linking.

this does highlight that it’s things you do at the HEAD of a clip that affect the linking.
if the overhang had ben at the tail, i wold have ben able to do that same edit without losing the link.

IMPORTANT

i just tried your process of trimming clips,
and as soon as i make the ripple edit on the audio with the pic tracks locked,
bang! i lose the link on that clip.
and not just to the right of the edit, but all of it! (which surprised me a little)

rather than locking and un-locking, what i do is to simply make the edit.

of course i get a raw butt-cut at that point,
but both sides of the edit are still linked.
and i can easily roll the picture to a new edit point.

TECHNIQUE SIDEBAR – EXTEND:
often i’ll use the EXTEND function rather than rolling.
i park the playhead where i want the new cut to be.
select the edit point,
and hit E (for extend)

you can also select the edit, play the timeline, and hit E on the fly if you chose to.

ANOTER EXAMPLE, MAYBE OFF POINT
recently i’ve been cleaning up some bad audio.
let’s say there is some audio junk in the first 10 frames the clip,
i could blade the audio of the first 10 frames, with the idea of slipping it to some clear fill.

TECHNIQUE SIDEBAR
i do this by double clicking just the audio into the viewer, where i can see the waveforms
hold SHIFT, and drag ether the in or out point – they both move together,
also you are scrubbing the audio.)

back to the edit:
now the pic is linked only to those 1st 10 frames, which are now out of sync.
so i’d have to select, un-link,
re-select the major part of the clip and re-link,

on the film i’m doing right now, i’ve got lots of sync shifts already, so the clip is now marked as in sync, when it isn’t.

RE-LINKING SOLUTIONS
in the above situation, i have been doing this:

Option Shift drag the audio clip don to an empty set of tracks.
(option makes a copy, Shift keeps it in sync)
the copy is not linked,
i can do what i want, in this case find some fill,
then shift drag it up to the original tracks,
overwriting the head of the inked audio.
the remainder of the clip is still linked.

when i find clips that have lost their linkage, and i want to retain a sync waring i do this:

select just the video,
bump it up to a clear track
(option + up down arrows will bump clips to higher & lower tracks – cant do video and audio at same time)
make a note of the sync offset,
put it back in sync,
link,
put it back OUT of sync,
bump it back down

boring!
if this was a bigger show, i’d write a QuicKeys Macro.

==================================================================

RUSHES MERGING, RE-MERGING
what you describe shouldn’t be a problem,
but i don’t use merging

rather than merging in the browser,
i generally prefer a system where we line up picture and audio in a timeline,
then LINK them.

i haven’t had the luxury of matching TC yet
but even if i did, i suspect i would still work this way.

for one, it’s easy to do a quick check of the sync before committing to a link or merge,

secondly, once the clips are in sync it’s easier to automate, using QuicKeyes or some other macro app.
there are XML solutions for getting them into sync.

up to your assistants, i guess.

==================================================================

MASTER AFFILIATE ISSUES:

“copy the ‘import’ project, rename it as the ‘cutting’ project, open it, then open my original cutting project and move all my bins to the renamed import project, then delete all the import bins so the Match command doesn’t go looking for the rushes day bins.

hmmm… it might work,
but you shouldn’t copy everything at one.
copy just the sequences.
i suspect then copying the clips might not force a link to those newly copied clips.

you should also try copying just sequences into a new project, then copying just clips.

on the feature i was cutting last year,
there were some scenes i’d already cut by the time we’d figured out the correct process for copying.
i reckon i would have tried these sorts of tricks (sorry it was a year ago, i cant remember the details)
but i don’t we think we did find a simple solution.

i recall my assistant having to over-cut those scenes,
thereby creating a version that DID link back to the browser clips.

she worked with a copy of the material,
then i copied it back into my project:
clips and sequences separately, of course

hope that helps,
nick

[Jonno Woodford-robsinon]

Hi Nick,

I like the Extend function also. I use it a lot when cutting jobs on Avid as well as FCP. I seem to be bouncing between both systems every other job recently and hoping to minimise the number of procedures that have to be done differently so I don’t have to un-learn those well trained finger macros I spend so much time repeating. The ability to re-map the keyboard has made the transition much easier (I remember having a go on FCP3 – no keyboard layout options back then – that was hard)

I can deal with the un-linking aspect to a degree, it’s the lack of red sync offset numbers that is the real bummer – I guess I’m gonna have to get used to it. I just wish when it merged a clip, it actually merged the clip – seems a very fragile function.

I think we’re upgrading to FCP7 once the shoot is over (2 weeks to go) so with any luck some of the gremlins may go away.

Thanks for the ‘Option-drag a clip in the timeline to copy it’ trick – I like that. It’ll be very handy, as will the audio technique to slip the in and out points – that seems easier than going into slip slide mode. I’ve occasionally used it before but keep forgetting it’s there!

cheers, and thanks again

Jonno