[Eli Hollander]

–crumplepop split screen plugin is for FCP7, not X.

[Eli Hollander]

Before you go ballistic, do your homework–go through one of the excellent interactive tutorials available out there… learn a bit about the way FCP X works.

If you take the time and you do learn this application, you’ll see how practically everything you mention doesn’t fit your conclusions. Of course, if you want to cling to your (editing) past, there’s always FCP 7 or any of the other alternatives.

[Eli Hollander]

brendan, thanks.

I must be doing something wrong; I don’t see the parameters that are shown in your screen shot. (I dragged your “Basic Subtitle” above a clip, as a connected clip).

[Eli Hollander]

I too can see the logic in that (after all, in/out point that overlap become “one selection” in most editing systems), and I don’t think FCP X is “telling” you how to do things, it’s just that every tool has its limitations.

You could use the “reject” marking, in addition to the “favorite” selection, which will give you a “red” selection, but that won’t give you an overlap either. Overlapping “Favorites”/”Rejects” will make “selections” that butt each other but be distinct from each other.

Another way to define overlapping selections is to create a compound clip of each selection. There is a discussion below re compound clips.

Another way is simply to drag each selection to another keyword collection.

[Eli Hollander]

Try Option-right/left bracket key for easy trimming of in/out pouts: just one keystrokeke (with the option key) will trim to your cursor position.

[Eli Hollander]

Thanks, Craig. I’ll try it tomorrow and let you know.

Also, Craig, thanks for your great tip re marking ranges as “favorites”; I was going crazy trying to deal with disappearing in/out points. Also, after creating favorites, looking at the clips in list view allows you to open favorites in a tab on a given clip, making it east to give names to those favorites, or allow you to cut then into the timeline with ease. This makes choosing shots very convenient (like the grease pencil on the workprint in the old film days).

(FCPX has some amazingly powerful tool and interface hooks)

Thanks.

[Eli Hollander]

On a project I am experimenting on, I moved my original clips to an external drive, and I then deleted the clips from the main drive. Then, in order to “re-link” the media (I had already started to edit the footage), I re-imported the clips from the external drive, with the option to copy the files to the main drive turned off.

In spite of that, FCPX still wants to copy the clips to the main drive whenever I restart FCPX (I have to turn off the copying in the background activity monitor). This seems to be a bug.

However, on material I imported without first editing (and without the need to re-link the media), the clips were not copied to the main drive, properly staying on the external drive.

(I hope that makes sense).

[Eli Hollander]

I think that J Hussar makes an excellent point: it would be very nice to have multiple timelines/projects open at the same time in different floating windows (more opportunities for Apple to sell more monitors); I also sometimes use a timeline as a kind of a bin. That said, one can have multiple projects (timelines) but they can’t be visible at the same time (but it’s very easy to go back and forth between timelines/projects and to cut/paste between them). I find that copying/pasting from one timeline to another is terrific compared to previous versions of FCP–the logical relationships of multiple layers and between image and sound clips are beautifully maintained… no more broken up clips when pasting in the middle of a complex timeline.

As far as keeping material at the end of the timeline as a kind of playpen experimental area,, that’s completely doable: an option-W command will open up a space, or selecting material and using the “position” cursor allows you to place that material anywhere downstream in the timeline. Speaking of experimenting, the “Audition” clip tool is totally amazing.

[Eli Hollander]

Re gaps… I too use gaps for all sorts of reasons and I find them useful to the process, and the position cursor/tool (keyboard shortcut: “P”) allows you to position anything anywhere, in effect, turning off the “magnetic” quality of clips. I don’t see this as a problem.

Putting clips above the primary storyline still allows you to move those clips freely in the timeline, but they also have a relationship to the clips below. If you create a secondary storyline, made up of several clips, they can be dealt with as a unit, but they can also be broken up at will.

As expressed earlier, FCPX looks deceptively simple and too “simplified,” but one really does need to go through the program with a good and deep tutorial to gain appreciation for FCPX’s power, flexibility, and ingenuity.

Eli

[Eli Hollander]

Thanks for the advice (I was on my way to Western Union)…. (just kidding).

But I did post an ad at Creative Cow Classified.

Thank you for your input so far.

Eli