[Ben Balser]

There are tons of free/cheap plugins that do this already. I’d not try to reinvent the wheel. And Motion’s built-in tracking won’t translate into a Template for FCPX.

https://www.fcpeffects.com/products/facial-blur

fcpeffects.com

Facial Blur

Use the Facial Blur Plugin to quickly isolate any part of your video frame; either to obscure or draw attention to a particular person or object.

[Ben Balser]

It was not an Apple booth, it was a B&H booth, as they are “authorized resellers.” Apple itself had no booth at NAB at all. That was 100% B&H on their own.

[Ben Balser]

The XML files from legacy FCP are NOT compatible with the FCPXML files FCPX requires.

You’d have to use Resolve or X2Pro to get the legacy XML file converted into something FCPX will understand.

[Ben Balser]

10.6.9 is perfectly safe, UNLESS you use FxFactory plugins that do tracking (and facial recognition?). The tracker FxFactory uses got broken. Seems code from iPad version, which doesn’t support plugins, ported to FCPX desktop version, broke some FxPlug4 stuff… AGAIN! That’s two seriously broken versions within three updates.

[Ben Balser]

I recently retired as a TV show producer, so here’s my two cents.

First, talking heads are BORING! Break it up with cut-aways, which is why they were invented in the first place. Use stock clips (Pexels, etc) to cut to clips that demonstrate or illustrate what the speaker is talking about in some way.

Second, do the same with your transitions. Cross-Dissolve from one subject to the next is disconcerting. Find some animated, or visually stimulating transition to move from one question to the next. And don’t fade in/out dialogue during those transitions, very distracting.

Side note, I’d have shot with at least two cameras, one cam getting an angled shot of her, so you have something to cut to and spice the visuals up a bit. Actually, I still produce a bible study show locally, and we shoot one camera, 4K wide shot, but then edit/deliver in 1080HD. So I can zoom that shot for nice close ups and medium shots as needed to break things up.

Good job, looks very clean, very nice (find a wall with nothing on it next time, I hate the wall plates in the background, but it’s personal for me). Or find a simple backdrop (a sheet from Walmart) to hang on the wall behind her. And have a way to pull it tight, then spray it down lightly with a spray bottle of water. That will make it shrink and pull wrinkles out. (Steamers don’t work, trust me.) You then have control of color and/or patterns.

Very good as is, very good, and will get better. Love the look, the color, textures, very close to perfection.

[Ben Balser]

Audio drifting out of sync is always a sample rate issue. Verify, again, for sure, that all of the audio and video files are all 48kHz audio sample rate, as well as the Project settings. My feeling is that something on his end is changing a Project audio sample rate or something. This will probably take some digging around.

Side note; I have had many of my past students run into this issue, but the equipment they were using only allowed them to select a Frame Rate for the audio setting. This is simply a bowl of steaming stink. Audio is never FPS, it is always audio samples per second, very different from FPS. Devices that let you set FPS for audio, are simply allowing you to chose preset audio sample rates, then labeling them as FPS. Truth is, no matter the video FPS, audio for video should always be 48kHz per second, period.

[Ben Balser]

Delte all render files, delete preference files, that seems to help most folks. And update your Pro Video Format, too. Highly recommend FCP Library Manager from Arctic Whiteness.

[Ben Balser]

With smart bins, they now have smart collections, and they sort based on metadata. So now about the only difference is the magnetic timeline, which I’m overriding half the time anyway. When FCPX first came out, it was updating like crazy. But it was also an incomplete app at that time.

[Ben Balser]

Nope, you are not following my answer. Repeating the OP doesn’t change it. Sorry. You’re mixing functions that don’t work the same as each other. It’s one of the many ways FCPX gets confusing, unfortunately. But it’s not a bug. The two functions work very differently.

[Ben Balser]

1 individual experience is not reflective of the industry as a whole. FCPX has had many bugs, many folks report crashes, just search the various forums. I’ve had many crashes, many bug issues, broken plugins, etc. I do some fairly complex work for broadcast TV and film.