Yesterday, for the first time, just for a while, I found myself wishing I had FCPX

[Atilio Menéndez]

You must be on list view and the clip has to be “expanded” (click on the little rigth arrow or press alt+right arrow). Then click next to the green star and change “favorite” to anything you want. You don’t want to rename the clip itself since that renames all of its “instances” (differently as when when working on the timeline).

But I don’t think that’s the best workflow. I instead use markers (eh, “tags”) for the more detailed descriptions and keywords for the more general categories. You can be as detailed as you want and use several markers within a keyword range or a favoritized segment, with none of the “mess”. You can then see all markers neatly listed by selecting the clips and “expanding” them by pressing alt+right arrow. Works quite well except for one thing: the view always resets to the “collapsed” state instead of staying in the “expanded” state.

Searching through the markers using smart collections works fine, and on the timeline I find the timeline index extremely useful to search/navigate/rename markers, rename clips, etc.

[Dave Brandt]

Hi Bill, Atilio,

I understand the workings of the keywords and fcpx in general quite well. I have done quite a few projects in it to date and there are many things to like.
I am referring specifically to the process of “transcribing” interviews into subclips here though. I really wanted fcpx to work for me here as i was using green screen and I have to say the keyer in fcpx is amazing, much faster than ultrakey in premiere, and results are really good.

back to the topic at hand though, and i really am hoping there is something I’m missing here.

in premiere I load a clip into the viewer, then create/select an appropriate empty bin in the project window. go back to viewer and I start to play the interview.

when i get to the start of the answer (Which i can see from my waveforms) i hit i, it never stops playing, i then wait til he’s finished, hit o and then whatever key command I have setup to create sub clip, I write a short synopsis of what he said, hit enter, then hit play again and off we go to the next bit.
I never have to touch the mouse, or twirl any arrows, it stays on my main interview clip, when I’m finished i have a tidy bin full of clips that resemble a transcript, i can then pick whatever I want and build my story, without looking at the footage, just by the clip name. (Which incidentally carries through to my timeline which i can “read” before I play.

I have not found a similar way to do this in fcpx without mousing, or like I said before, Creating compounds which moves me away form my original interview clip so i have to find it again etc.

I would love to know how you fcpx editors have overcome this?
thanks

Dave

http://www.SolidMedia.ie

Macbook Pro 17″ i7 2.2 8GB
PC i7 32GB Self Build
FCP 7 FCPX Adobe CS6 Vegas 12 Nuendo 4

[Atilio Menéndez]

Oh yes, I truly agree that transcribing interviews is needlessly difficult with FCPX. I too haven’t found a way which I am happy with, I hate mousing myself!

Perhaps the following could work for you: put your interview clip(s) in a compound clip, open it, go to the timeline index, select the first clip and let go of the mouse. Now you can play back and forth, insert edits (blade all), navigate/select segments (using up and down arrow keys), rename the segments (by pressing enter and typing) and delete useless segments, all without ever touching the mouse. For this to work clicking on the index first is important otherwise pressing enter to rename has strangely no effect.

It is not quite as good as what you describe but kinda close. Only problem is the edits then “live” within the compound clip and that limits organizing the material using keywords and searching. You can still apply keywords to the compound clips themselves, move and copy the edited segments from one compound clip to the other and so forth, but it is not quite the same. The compound clips then resemble the traditional bins, but you cannot easily look inside. If one could only “expand” the compound clips in the event browser and see the clips within this would be much better.

[Dave Brandt]

Thanks Atilio,

very interesting, but a heck of a workaround for something that i use so often! and seems like a few more keystrokes than necessary, also it would be difficult to truly arrange a story the way i do it, i just move the subclips around like sentences to tell it in different ways by looking at the clip names in the timeline.
for now i will just have to stick to premiere, I like a lot about fcpx, but its things like this that have me scratching my head, and i think there seems no way to do this in fcpx properly.

thanks
Dave

http://www.SolidMedia.ie

Macbook Pro 17″ i7 2.2 8GB
PC i7 32GB Self Build
FCP 7 FCPX Adobe CS6 Vegas 12 Nuendo 4

[Chris Harlan]

In Avid, why would you bother breaking down a single piece of video, making sub clips and then renaming them? I just drop them into timeline–3 keystrokes–and then use the timeline as a bin. I guess I’m missing something.

[Bill Davis]

[Dave Brandt] “in premiere I load a clip into the viewer, then create/select an appropriate empty bin in the project window. go back to viewer and I start to play the interview.”

OK, In X that’s “Open a clip in the Event Browser. Then range select any part of the clip. You do NOT need to create any appropriate bin in any project window, becaue the way keywords work, it’s going to automatically do that for you. You start to Play your interview. You select an In and an Out – and you have a range. Then you tap K and in the keyword viewer, you pick a tag to apply. Lets say you use the L key for (log) or the 1 key, it doesn’t matter – ANY tag will do the job. If you want to be more overt, you can use SELECTS – and if you do, the next time you hit K to bring up the keyword display, you can just hit S and selects will show up ala autofill. Or you can use the 10 persistent tags in the keyword browser to make SELECTS one of the number tags. All the flexibility you could ever need, but the point is that you just apply the same keyword over and over with a single keystroke to whatever selection of ranges you want to separate out of the generall pool of footage.

That keyword collection IS your bin. So theres no real need to pre-define any folders with X.

[Dave Brandt] “when i get to the start of the answer (Which i can see from my waveforms) i hit i, it never stops playing, i then wait til he’s finished, hit o and then whatever key command I have setup to create sub clip, I write a short synopsis of what he said, hit enter, then hit play again and off we go to the next bit.”

I understand the style where attaching text blocks to clips was important back when there wasn’t as robust a keyword search system available, but I find I just don’t do that any more. If I create sensible keywords, that combined with the ability to scrub and view content that’s been narrowed by keyword search, is much faster for me for drilling into and finding assets rapidly than reading across complex notes.

I get that some people are oriented to blocks of text. And if that’s what works for you, stick with it. But honetly, that’s one of the bigest changes in my my thinking with X. I’m now oriented to keywords used in conjunction with self-created ratings strategies. If I have 10 instances of places where the interview subject talked about “1st quarter results.” I can rapidly add (or NOT add) tags like Q1, “Excellent” “results” and USE THIS at the point of keyword entry – which can help me rapidly bucket not just the content of the clips I’m considering, but also help me remember my qualitative judgements as well.

I never thought this way using folders for storage. It was a thing. I created it. It stayed that way forever. If I wanted to change the buckets or add the same asset to multiple buckets – it wasn’t easy. So extensive notes were important.

The new capability I value is the almost instant ability to reduce my view via keyword find – then go back to viewing everything. Over and over. Rather than just putting myself into a “read a list of text sentences” view where I have to scan and mentally sort from a fixed list of possibly hundreds of instances if I have a long series of interviews on similar topics.

But in the end, it’s to each their own. I know that long time traditional NLE users have cretaed amazing systems for folders and bucketing in tools that weren’t necessarily really designed for those purposes – and I respect that. But these new tools can open up excieting new possibilities – but perhaps less if an editor only tries to use them to re-create a system that’s utoo close to what the old tools enabled.

In the end, it’s what we’re comfotable with. And If that’s the way you work best, by all means go for it. My way is not better, just different. But I do think some re-evaluation of old practices is healthy – and X does kinda cause folks to re-evaluate their old habits as they learn the new capabilities.

I just find that as I “think database” more and “think folders” less – both my speed of asset access and my confidence that I can’t really “lose” anything is much stronger now than it was when I was working in a less search/sort oriented NLE. The very act of ranging and tagging a thing, puts it in a class that I can always find – heck, even if I tag it WRONG – just hiding all the “untagged” assets is a huge help in zeroing in on what I want to locate and lets me incrementally improve my tagging later. It’s a bit more like word processing than sticky tag folder labeling – which I find really interesting.

Asset libraries are getting larger and larger. I think having more and faster tools for working with them is an important evolution in NLE operations.

But YMMV.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Dave Brandt]

Hi Chris,
It’s just the way i work with long interviews.
If I have a bin full of small clips that are labelled according to what is said in them I can construct a story out of that much easier than going through a timeline and picking bits that way, especially if there are 5 or 6 interviews all relating and telling the one story together, it makes sense to label it as im listening to it anyways.
But I have done a timeline select plenty of times, especially if the interview is short and I know what they say where.
Dave

http://www.SolidMedia.ie

Macbook Pro 17″ i7 2.2 8GB
PC i7 32GB Self Build
FCP 7 FCPX Adobe CS6 Vegas 12 Nuendo 4

[Bill Davis]

[Chris Harlan] “In Avid, why would you bother breaking down a single piece of video, making sub clips and then renaming them? I just drop them into timeline–3 keystrokes–and then use the timeline as a bin. I guess I’m missing something.”

Chris,

You’re not “missing” anything. You have great skills at using a system that’s proved to be hugely functional and professional for years. You may not EVER need the newer search, sort and tagging tools in a system like X to do the work you need to do.

It’s just a new way of looking at old tasks using systems that weren’t as popular back when the interface of Legacy was designed.

There’s absolutely no need to learn it unless you find yourself in circumstances where some aspect of your practice changes in ways that the altered toolset in a program like X can help.

And it may not EVER change into that.

The big difference is that in X, the database is pretty much an equal partner to the edit interface. It runs everything. And if you don’t NEED a database to do your work, or simply don’t want to change your practices to work equally in both a database AND in the editing timeline – then it’s not for you.

It’s just a tool to better manage some of the complexity of some types of editing. Not all, just some.

Only you know if you need it. And as much as you push back against it, you ARE keeping yourself aware of what it’s good at- which is all that’s required if you ever start to think that what it does might someday become important to the work you need to do.

Simple as that.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Chris Harlan]

Thanks, Bill. I was skipping through the threads so I’m not sure I understood the context of the question. I was questioning Atilio’s five step Avid process in answer to Dan. Now, I see. Yes, if you wanted to use Avid in a searchable manner similar to X, it would take two extra steps. But as you so aptly point out, it would not be my preferred way of working.

Hey! I believe I saw you on the stage of the supermeet–if that was you calling out numbers–though I didn’t know it at the time. I had fun. Its quite a show you guys put on. I wish that every show I go to would toss out that many prizes at its audience!

[Bill Davis]

Dude, you were at the SuperMeet and didn’t come find me so say Hi?

I’m bummed!

The Supermeet is high on my list of enjoyable things I get to do every year.

The only thing better than helping give out $80,000 worth of free stuff to an appreciative crowd is the chance to make and strengthen long time relationships. I look forward all year to catching up with old friends – and the Supermeet is ground zero for that for me.

As you witnessed, people get seriously gleeful. Even the people who don’t win seem to enjoy the evening.

Next time, please corral me to say Hi. After all these years, part of the fun of the evening is being able to shake hands with people who are otherwise just names. For me, NAB is no longer quite as much about looking at things. It’s more about meeting people, and I’m sorry we didn’t get to do that.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.