[T. Payton]

First make the clip a secondary storyline “command-g”. Then you can add transitions, etc.

Wierd aint it. I’m sure there is some reason for this and it came up in a meeting in Apple, but who knows what that reason is.

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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

Agreed, compound clips are good for something, but probably not long format logging. Markers and ranges are much better suited for logging than notes.

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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

[David Berez] “Shouldn’t I be able to log a range selection and notate it in the notes section?”

I was just logging a bunch over the weekend in FCP X and found it pleasantly very efficient. Extremely efficient actually. Although a little different that it was I have to say I think it is better than FCP 7. I went through about 65 shots and I soon learned I didn’t need to take my hands off the keyboard, even for switching shots.

For you I would offer 2 solutions:

1. Compound Clips can behave much like subclips. Set your in and out and hit Option- G, and name your compound clip. The compound clip will now be selected (see what I mean by not having to leave the keyboard) which you can further add keywords to rangers, markers and edit the notes field.

2. In documentary work we happen to use markers for interview notes (I never thought of using the notes field, but I digress). Do the same in FCP X, plus now you can easily search for and isolate your notes on the timeline index. One advantage to markers is that you can have multiple markers per clip.

One thing you might really find useful is using a text generator on a clip and then disabling it. It will behave like a marker with visible text so you organize sections of your story.

– T.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

[Simon Ubsdell] “for me the gearing seems to be a bit on the crude side overall. Anyone else find this?”

Oh yeah that is a negative. Even with nudging the exposure controls are too extreme for me too.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

BTW. I mocked and hated the Color Board cConcept. It had nothing to do with the vectroscope and 3 way color correctors. Come on, when color is all about circles, you’ve created a square? ! But then after some digging I realized it was the “hue adjustment” tool form the secondaries in Apple Color. That made me hate it less.

Then I used it. I did my tonal correction with my waveform scope open. Everything I needed was there. Then I went for “pleasing color”. I was shocked. It worked wonderfully. Added some vignettes, and some secondaries. I’m impressed.

We still need a 3 way color corrector to get accurate colors, especially flesh tones. And I second the notion of the iPad control surface, but not just color controls, but audio faders and transport controls on the iPad. But the currently color controls in FCP X are a pretty good tool once you understand them.

– T.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

Exactly. Because having the ability to relink to media is just soo last year. 😉

Actually it looks like if you drag your lost clips into the correct event (just the even title), it will relink them. Seems to work well.

Of course you really need to be able to find and relink automatically, and have the option to link to different versions of the clips.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

I have been wondering the same thing, so I wrote down a few of my storyline observations:

1 – In the FCP X storyline based timeline every element has to be pinned to another element – therefore secondary storylines are like tracks in that only the larger element needs to be pinned (connected) not each individual clip.
2 – This facilitates “linking” of clips without loosing the “in line” editing capability.
3 – It lets you build virtual “tracks” that you can solo, disable, etc.
4 – My other observation is that I can’t figure out how to make them work consistency. Sometimes I can make a secondary storyline, some times I can’t.

As I was trying to show someone the storyline idea in FCP X it struck me as very ironic. This entire FCP X editing paradime with the removal of tracks they have made something as equally if not more restrictive than tracks. There are some advantages to both, but why not just give us the option of two types of sequences–track based or story based?

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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

I too was hopeful that the “make storyline” would work also, but it doesn’t let you add audio effects to it, nor can you change levels. On top of that it was very hit and miss even getting the “make storyline” to work. What the FCP Team needs to do.. among about a 1000 other things… is to make an “audio group” or something like that in order to group audio items together and add effects, levels, etc, but still edit them on the timeline.

I actually think that kind of grouping that we have right now with compound clips is pretty cool and could be a very useful tool. It could be expanded even further to include video as well as audio. That way you could “tag” a bunch of video clips from the same camera/scene, etc. that all need the same color correction or whatever done to them and then make just one modification. Audio too could just be “tagged” to a group rather than actually having to make a compound clip.

Then we have flying faders to control mixing on an iPad app, and then a color control surface on an iPad app! Those would be very compelling.

There is some much potential here it is staggering… very sad that they are not taking advantage of it.

– T.

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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

Chris,

I totally understand now. I have sent out spots like that I just never used the lingo.

You can absolutely do that in FCP X. In your Audio Sweetened version, do a select all then hit V to disable everything. Then enable the “channel” you want (again with the V), and Export your Audio for each part (setup a keyboard shortcut for it to make it easy). I doesn’t look like you have the option for mono at the moment, so you’ll need to fire up something to make that mono file.

(Humm. I wonder if I could automate this in Automator…. probably so. Come to think of it, now that these are exported like this you could bring them into ProTools like we did back in the day before OMF. Interesting…)

On the other hand to bring all those seperate elements into FCP X, just bring them into a Bin, or I’m sorry Event. Click all the elements and hit “Clips > Synchronize Clips” it will make a “master” clip will all the video and audio in place. Kinda cool actually.

I’ll go ahead and make another video about this. Hopefully it will help others.

I think FCP X is so much about changing the edit process that the FCP team somehow made it completely devoid of the day to day production duties that we have to do (hence the outrage). Hopefully the FCP team will get their act together soon.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

Chris,

Can you define audio splits? And M&E? Sorry I’m not familiar with those terms.

Regarding the Magnetic Timeline, audio sweetening is the absolute LAST thing you want to do after the picture is locked. My typical workflow has been to perform draft edits, and then get approval from the client on my “final edit” without audio sweetening or color grading done. Don’t get me wrong I do my best to make the audio sound decent and the frames to be pleasing, but the “final edit” is not where color grading and audio sweetening take place. Once I get the “final edit” approval, then I color grade and then lastly audio sweeten.

However, if you do need to make an edit at this point you would take note of the effects you have added and the level adjustments on the Compound Clip (our channel) and then break apart the compound clip back into individual elements. Edit away, then regroup the clips into a Channel, and then reapply the effects and adjustments. (Note: This is exactly what I would have to do in ProTools and even earlier versions of Soundtrack Pro before reconfirming was introduced, so it is pretty typical.)

I hope this helps,

– T.

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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque