[Alex Elkins]

[Dustin Parsons] “Interesting, I’ve never heard of that program but it sounds quite powerful”

Yeah, it’s good. It’s obviously not just for FCP, you can make shortcuts for anything. I think there are other similar programmes out there but Butler was the first I came across. It seems to be pretty popular as you can download pre-made shortcuts all over the web. I got one the other day that adds a shortcut for giving items in Finder colour labels! Very handy.

Of course Tom and Bret are right, this should already be a feature. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t use it. Hopefully FCP 8 will be as awesome as Steve Jobs says and include this useful feature. Get requesting!

Alex

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

Good idea. I’ve emailed Calibrated and will post their reply here.

It would be the same if one was editing a RED or DSLR project using ProRes conversions if the transcoding was done outside of FCP (eg with MPEG Streamclip or Clipfinder).
Shane, you’ve mentioned in other posts that you use Grinder for your DSLR conversions. Presumably the same issue could arise with files converted with Grinder, or does Grinder manage the metadata better than that? I don’t know whether or not the .THM files contain ‘original clip name’ metadata.

Thanks,
Alex

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

Dustin,

I have created my own shortcut which does exactly this. I’ve programmed it into the ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’ arrows. I did this using some software called Butler, which it seems you now have to pay for (it used to be free, although there is a free trial).
You tell it the keyboard shortcuts involved and then tell it which button to assign that series of shortcuts to.

The shortcuts for ‘next clip down’ are CMD+4 (select Browser window), Down Arrow, Return Arrow
For ‘next clip up’ change it to Up arrow.

You could also add ‘Space Bar‘ to the end if you wanted the clip to start playing automatically like it does in finder. Not as elegant as Finder but it does the job. Programming your own shortcuts like this really opens FCP up.

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

[Shane Ross] “Tapeless? Same thing. Attach the drive with the source archived footage, then do a Batch Capture.”

Hi Shane. This is interesting – I thought the golden rule with tapeless was “don’t change the file names”
Is this dependent on the original media being imported using Log & Transfer, rather than just dragging files in natively from Finder? For instance, I use a Calibrated plugin so that I don’t have to L&T EX3 files into FCP. I’m pretty sure telling FCP to batch capture these files opens up the Log and Capture window, meaning you can’t re-import the files but I might be remembering wrong. Same with if you edit RED proxy files.

Thanks,
Alex

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Sean,

What you’re doing sounds absolutely fine as long as you maintain your backup routine.

Personally I keep things like project files, client documents, scripts, logos, compressed exports etc on a separate volume (internal RAID 1) and have all of my actual media (animations, video files, voice over, music etc) on an external RAID 5.
As far as I’m aware there’s no technical advantage to this, I do it simply for organisation.

I also back up all project media to LTO-3 tapes and keep master files of finished programmes on a different LTO-3 tape which I call ‘Archive’.

Hope that answers your question. Perhaps someone can confirm whether keeping project files on separate volumes to media files is good, bad or irrelevant.

All the best,
Alex

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

[Rihards Olmanis] “I always knew that this is the place to turn when the live experts are asleep”

We never sleep.

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

Rihards,

What you have there are XDCAM EX files. Download ‘Sony Log & Transfer Plugin” and then use Log & Transfer to import them into FCP.

I’d also second what Rafael says – don’t rename, move or change ANY of those files otherwise you’re in trouble without spending some money!

Good luck,
Alex Elkins

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Molly,

I’m going to take a guess and say you’re exporting with Compressor? Make sure that whatever setting you’re using has ‘Add clean aperture information’ UN-checked in the Encoder settings.

If that’s not it then I don’t know without more information.

Thanks,
Alex

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Emanuele,

There are a lot of problems with your approach here! Why are you editing in a 1440×1080 sequence? Both XDCAM EX cameras and 5D shoot full raster 1920×1080.

If I was in your situation, this is what I would do…

Create a new sequence with the following settings:
Frame Size: 1920 x 1080 (HDTV 1080i)
Pixel Aspect: Square
Field Dominance: None
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422 (NOT HQ)

Copy and paste the contents of your old sequence into the new one. Select all and press CMD+Alt+V and remove Basic Motion and Distort attributes.

All of your clips will now be the correct size in your sequence. Any motion effects that were applied to the clips will need to be re-done.

Send to Color. You shouldn’t need to convert the files to ProRes first as far as I know.

In Color set your render settings to render as ProRes 422, 1920×1080

Grade.

Render.

Send to FCP.

Good luck – I think you may need it!

Alex

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film

[Alex Elkins]

Thanks Herb and Dennis for clarifying. Herb, what do you mean when you say that Premiere is slower than FCP in setting up multiclips? Do you have to manually sync each shot or something??

Thanks,
Alex

Twitter: @postbluetv
http://www.PostBlue.tv
Shot on RED, Post on FCP/Color: Short Capoeira Film