Scot Walker
Forum Replies Created
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[Mathieu Ghekiere] “And that’s the good thing about working with external RED RAW media and the RMD file”
Great info, thanks.
If you look inside the Original Media folder inside a Library, you’ll see the RED folders A003_C005_01016M and the RED files with the RMD etc. You only need to do Reveal In Finder one time to get you inside the Library in the Finder (You can also just open up the Library in the Finder by right-clicking and selecting Show Package Contents) and at the clips. From there, you can take all those clips and do what you do with your external method.
For example, I often use Adobe Audition to clean up audio. I simply Reveal In Finder, double-click (because on my Mac Audition is the default app for WAV), and edit it in Audition, save, then go back into FCP X and it’s updated.
So if my media was external, I’d do the same thing: select Reveal In Finder to quickly go to that clip, it opens up the Finder and reveals the media, and then I can go and edit them all if I want through the Finder, then go back to FCP X and it’s updated.
I do understand how sending a Library without the media to someone is easier. Does FCP X handle that well? If you send it to another person and they open a project, are the links to the media are to a network drive? I guess you guys use proxies? I’ve never used proxies because it’s all local for me and my drive is fast enough. So you have all the media on a network drive and the proxies are created there too, so then when you send someone a Library with the project but without the media, FCP X will open it up and then go get the proxies over the network and load it up pretty quickly over the network?
Thanks again!
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[Mathieu Ghekiere] “it’s more difficult sharing projects between people who have the same set of media. All sharing is more difficult, except the fact of just handing someone over that big Library file”
I’m not saying I know best, I’m only sharing my workflow that works well for me. I’m totally open to learn different ways that might be better, though, so I appreciate your input.
To share, I just use the Consolidate command. For example, sending to color for a narrative film, I export the XML and then use the Consolidate command to an external drive and send it off. Works perfectly. If my media was external instead of managed, I’d export the XML and then copy the project folder to an external drive. Pretty much the same.
I’m not in a studio with multiple people on a network. I’m in a home studio. So I haven’t had to deal with sharing over a local network and I understand that SAN is very expensive. Apparently, you can share a Library on your network with NFS: https://www.doubleprecision.be/blog/2014/5/9/how-to-share-final-cut-pro-x-libraries-in-network-using-nfs
[Mathieu Ghekiere] “you cannot organise it on a Finder level the way you want. It becomes hidden in a FCPX package, sometimes with a name FCPX gives it”
I’ve never seen it rename the clips. My clips always come in with the filename and stay that way. Accessing the clip in the Finder is just right-clicking and selecting “Reveal In Finder”. Library folder hierarchy is pretty clear. There is a folder for each event, a folder for each project, an original media folder, etc.
[Mathieu Ghekiere] “when working with RED RAW media, it’s easier to afterwards change RAW settings to your footage, and have it update in FCPX”
FCP X has a “Modify RED RAW Settings” button under Info when you select a clip with color space, gamma, iso, kelvin, etc. inside FCP X. I cut a short narrative shot on a RED Epic in 5K wide 3:1 compression and used managed media and it worked really well. If you want to access those clips for external applications, you just right-click on it in FCP X and select Reveal In Finder whether FCP X is managing it or not.
I get projects from different people who organize their secondary sound and the video clips in different ways. If I have 3 days of footage on a cheap external hard drive that is given to me, I don’t have to figure out how they managed it. I don’t copy it to my drive via the Finder and then organize it the way I want. I had RED footage with its multiple folders and duplicates, and sound, and I just selected Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 at once and FCP X copied it to my Library for me with no RED folders (unlike Premiere Pro) and no duplicates. It creates a key word for folder names like Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 so if I want to isolate just Day 1’s media, you just click on that key word.
[Mathieu Ghekiere] “Even then, I would think an FCPX projects of gigabytes and gigabytes can be very unwieldy”
It’s the same amount of space if it’s managed or external.
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[Oliver Peters] “, I’ve been working with FCP X since 10.0. I do have a pretty good handle on how it works. I don’t say that to be snotty, but simply so you know my experience with X.”
Yeah, I appreciate that. I’ve been using it since 10.0 too. I still learn new tricks.
[Oliver Peters] “but the default is always back to the User > Movies folder, unless you set up a target location with each new Library”
For me, the default is in the Library.
[Oliver Peters] “For example, in none of the work I edit, do I want the Libraries saved to the internal boot drive (if I can help it) and definitely not in the User > Movies folder.”
You have the latest version of FCP X? I experience none of this.
You create a Library and when you do you get a “Save as…” dialogue. I pick my external Thunderbolt 2 RAID drive that reads 930 megs per second. The default for the Media, Cache, and Backup are always “In Library”. So that means it will be stored in that Library file on the external drive.
[Oliver Peters] “Actually I never let clips reside in the Library. This is a very poor way to work for many projects”
I’m not really following you here. I create a Library and I get a Save As… dialogue and I put it on my fast external drive. I then create an Event inside that Library for each wedding. The media and the project files are located in each Event. That’s the way it is designed to be used.
Now you can link to your media instead of copying it into the event, but I copy it into the event, which is inside the library, because this allows me to just drag and drop the library to any drive I want or onto the network and everything is inside of it. There is no way to have a broken link.
How is this a poor way to work? Thanks.
[Oliver Peters] “While Motion has become a nice effects creator that works in tandem with FCPX, we lost the “send to” functionality that existed between FCP 7 and Motion. Namely, if I wanted to send 5 clips as a group from an FCP X project to Motion for some sort of composited effect, I cannot do that”
Ahhh, yes. They definitely need to add that. It takes the extra step of selecting Reveal In Finder and then importing it into Motion. I use the clips as a guide in Motion and then export out a generator without the clip and lay it over the clips. This allows me to just select “Open in Motion” inside FCP X to go to Motion to make edits.
Another annoyance is when you make that edit in Motion and save, it doesn’t update in the timeline in FCP X. You have to drag it back out from the generator palette.
[Oliver Peters] “This is a workaround. In this scenario, if you need to interactively work with clip volumes and the master volume and compression, you cannot do it. You have to step into the compound and make adjustments without the benefit of hearing or metering the result through the compression/limiting effect”
Good point.
[Oliver Peters] “In Premiere Pro, the equivalent might be a Dynamic Link clip on the timeline. This is a nested After Effects composition. Having that sit there unrendered will bog down performance. If you render & replace, the composite is replaced by a new piece of media that is not simply just a render file. It’s an accessible .mov in whatever format you designate. This clip includes metadata that connects it back to the original. So If I want to re-edit it by going back to the AE comp (in the FCP X scenario, go back to the compound) the metadata links this clips back to its original much like a match frame or stepping into a compound”
OK. If I have a generator in FCP X from Motion and it bogs down the playback of FCP X, I just select it and press CONTROL R and it renders it into a video clip that plays back in real time. If I take that generator and Open in Motion and edit it, then go back to FCP X, I have to press CONTROL R again to render it. So you are saying in Premiere Pro, you dont’ have to render an AE comp again after you’ve made changes to the original?
Thanks for taking time to explain. 🙂
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[Oliver Peters] “While you don’t see them, it’s still media that has to be accessed from the hard drives, in the event that you want to cut to another angle”
On my system, it’s only accessed in the angle editor.
[Oliver Peters] “bottom line was that I couldn’t get audio over to the Pro Tools mixer”
That sucks. I don’t use Pro Tools so I got nothing.
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Trying to learn and also help …
[Oliver Peters] “Control of preset locations for “scratch disks”
Select a Library, select Library Properties from File menu. Click on Modify Settings next to Storage Locations. You can define Media location, the Cache (scratch), and the Backups.
“Project consolidation with transcode and trim functions”
What does “with transcode and trim functions” mean? You can definitely consolidate and you have the option to consolidate it with the optimized media (transcoded media) and proxies or not.
“”Save as” for Libraries “
Libraries are self contained and have all the media inside that and so if you want to duplicate or move, etc., you just use the Finder.
Events, on the other hand, contain your projects and there is a Move Event feature and Copy Event feature, under the File menu.
“Tabbed sequences”
Totally agree and I don’t know why they use the arrow back and forth between compounds, projects, etc. They should have tabs up there for you to go between all those things.
Also agree about being able to customize the UI more. I hate having to click on Video or Audio in the Inspector. I should be able to have those both visible at the same time. What’s weird is Apple’s Motion used to allow you to do that and save it as a preset, but then they made it like FCP X in this regard. Stupid.
Add to this list the fact that it doesn’t page or scroll the timeline as you play. Even iMovie does that.
“Integration with Motion”
FCP X has always had integration with Motion. A Motion project is saved as a Generator and that shows up in your Generator tab in FCP X. Motion allows you to save as FCP X templates too.
FCP X / Motion have more powerful integration than Premiere Pro / AE through “rigging and publishing”. Premiere Pro has Live Text templates, right? This allows you to edit your text from an AE project right in Premiere Pro without having to go to AE. FCP X does that too, but much more. It allows you to change all aspects of the text including the font, the color, etc. Not only that, you can alter any parameter you want on any object from Motion. You just rig it that way. So, for example, if you create an animated lower third in Motion and you have a rectangle shape under the text, you can tell it that the rectangle shape color can be picked in FCP X – Blue, Orange, Yellow, Red. So all of the effects and animations and everything stay the same, but inside FCP X you can click on a pop-up menu and the color will be listed. It’s very powerful.
FCP X definitely needs the ability to allow me to define my Editing applications so if I double-click on a .PSD, it opens it up in Photoshop. The same with audio, etc. Don’t know why they haven’t done this. It’s a basic feature. Right now, you have to Reveal in Finder and then double-click that because the Finder has default open preferences.
“Some type of master audio bus with the ability to add compression and limiting”
I use compression and limiting in FCP X all the time. It supports all the Logic effects and OS X Audio Unit effects, along with its own.
If you want to apply an effect to the entire project, select your main timeline and turn it into a compound and then apply your limiter and compressor on that. You can also do color grading this way if you want to lower the saturation to the entire project without having to grade each clip.
“Better control of split audio edits with transitions”
Expanding the audio of any clip allows you to manually edit it and it ignores your transitions.
“A “render and replace” function with re-edit abilities”
FCP X automatically renders and replaces in the background. It’s optimizing your project to ProRes all the time. I have this option turned off because my Mac is capable of playing native RED r3d files, for example, without having to transcode it. But what if I have a complex sequence with several FX and animations, etc., and it slows down every time it gets to that point. I can select it and then Render Selection. It will render a ProRes in the background and replace automatically.
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[Oliver Peters] “But it is still a multicam container. I’ve run into issues, mainly with audio, where this was a huge problem and I ended up having to break the item apart”
I was responding to your comment ” Get rid of the unnecessary angles in the finished timeline” and that’s just not the case. You never ever see unused angles in the main timeline. You need to go to the angle editor to see those angles.
In regards to a multicam clip having issues with audio, what are your issues? And how did you “break the item apart”? I’m not really sure how you do that. Maybe I can help.
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[Oliver Peters] “Correct. I want the multicam flattened to leave you with the essence of the selected clip”
For me, it shows me the name of the clip and the thumb of the clip, just like any other clip in the timeline.
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“Get rid of the unnecessary angles in the finished timeline”
You see the multicam clip in the FCP X timeline, not unused angles.
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Motion’s one timeline per project design is a crushing organizational limitation.
Motion’s behaviors can provide very rich and expressive animation, especially when layered, but they still lack the power of program flow control that expressions can provide. Motion’s lack of scripting severely limits automation potential, meaning that pretty much everything you do in Motion must be done by hand
You can import a Motion project file into another Motion project file. There is your pre-comp behavior you want. You just drag and drop the other project file into the one you are working on and it becomes a group.
The Mac OS has had AppleScript for many years, coupled with an app to create automation throughout the entire system called Automator. Motion is also based on XML. So there is a lot more scripting and automation ability than you think. For example, someone had Final Cut Pro X text them through the Messages app when their render was finished. As far as batch rendering Motion projects, you can use Compressor to do that, along with scripting.
There is also a Custom parameter behavior that lets you do a lot of customizing.
Motion 5 lets you import .txt and .rtf files for your text too so you can do things like just changing a text file and then dragging the motion project files to Compressor for a batch render without having to even open up a project.
The rigging in Motion 5 and Final Cut Pro X is more powerful. It does so much more than text. Pretty much any object and any parameter can be rigged in Motion 5 and then selected in Final Cut Pro X. That’s why there are a TON of impressive templates available for FCP X that are very inexpensive, and they are very customizable in FCP X.
I’m not saying everything you are doing in AE with scripting by hand can be done in Motion, I’m saying that there is more ability than “pretty much everything you do in Motion must be done by hand.” That’s not the case.
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This helped me just now. Thanks!
Scot
