Michael Sanders
Forum Replies Created
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Mitch,
If you do a lot of caption work and haven’t tried the FCP X/Motion 5 combo yet, may I humbly suggest you give it a go. Certainly in this respect FCP X isn’t just there it way past FCP 7 and speeding along the motorway.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
Yep I hear what you are saying.
The secret to dealing with FCP X media is to copy the media directly into the FCP X Event. If you don’t FCP X just creates an alias the files that is very easy broken.
In theory if you then just saved the event file you could rebuild the event folder from scratch. I duplicate it to another disc for safety anyway.
It’s a pain especially if you’re using a format like XDcam HD that requires conversion but there’s a sort of workaround which is:
Create the event in FCP X, Quit and then use XDcam SW or whatever and set the destination as the FCP X event media folder. The downside to this is that when you open the event the “date added” data is missing.
There is is some weird reconnect stuff in FCP X but it’s automatic and quite hit and miss. I haven’t got to the bottom of it yet as I’ve been to busy on something else.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
But would’t that way require you to make each caption up in motion wouldn’t it?
This way I make up a base caption and change the words at will from within FCP.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
Totally!
A client asked me to change to all the slates (about 10) on a video this week, they decided they did, after all want their logo on them..
In total honesty it was no more than 10 mins from starting the process to finishing it.
Quickly went into Motion and added the logo and saved this back to the FCP X titles. Then I simply dropped the re made slide over the existing ones and FCP X copied the text and transitions over.
Job done.
I wonder where it’s written that that’s not Professional?
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
Hi Mark,
Maybe I’m being overly conscientious but I think its important to protect yourself from the following:
1) Disk failure
2) File corruption
3) Force majeure (i.e. accidental damage, fire & theft).I to like FCP X’s continually saving but I still wait to be convinced that the files can’t be corrupted. Duplicating the project to the same hard drive protects you from 2 but not 1 and 3. If you use a striped RAID 1 drive then your protected from 1 and 2 but not 3.
I edit at home and even though we have a burglar alarm theres still a chance of an intruder getting in (although the chances of them taking the external drives are small).
Fires do happen as well and I still remember when a London post house went up in flames and how much chaos that caused.
Personally I now copy the FCP X files to a small USB that lives in my computer all the time and then regularly copy the files over to dropbox.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
Funny that.
I’ve spent last tue, wed and thur cutting a 3 min promo spot for an agri company (which I shot on Tuesday during the day).
I could have done it in 7 but reckon it took me 1/2 as long to get it done in X and that includes adding grades (something which I probably wouldn’t have bothered doing in 7) and EQ’ing the audio (which I would have probably done in FCP 7 by round tripping to STP but could do with the click of a few buttons in X).
Being able to jump to search/list the timeline to find interviews is so useful it hurts when you go back to 7.
Being able to keyword GV’s so you can search them…
Plus to be honest the edit in general is faster.Yes there are issues depending on what kind of material you are working on and how it fits with your workflow. But if you really think FCP X is a dead end then I suggest you really haven’t properly used it in anger yet.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
Fair enough – makes perfect sense. I currently don’t use Avid but I am thinking about it so wise words for the future!
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
why bother? I’m running Lion on my 17″ i7 MBP with FCP7 and FCPX installed and all works fine.
I have a clone’s of my HD before FCPX and before Lion but so far its fine.
Yesterday I spent all day editing on FCP7, working in Motion 5, Compressor 4 and Photoshop CS5 without a single crash or hiccup. The only thing I can’t get to work is compressor/qmaster networked rendering.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
I’ve been banging on about this on the FCP-L list, its my biggest issue about FCP X that there is nothing like autosave to protect you from a corrupt file or a disk that dies.
IMHO its the one the biggest issues that stops FCP X being a pro piece of software!
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor -
This is one way round:
You’re need to break them apart to fix the sync which you do by shift ctrl S.
To change the levels of the different channels, ctrl click on the clip to bring up the menu then select open in timeline. To go back to normal click on the left hand arrow above the timeline search bar (back in timeline history).
Its the only way I’ve found so far – I’m sure there are other ways.
Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor