FCP Toolkit

Multiple Versions of FCP

I keep with me on my portable harddisk, at all time these copies of FCP application files.

1. v5.0
2. v5.0.2
3. v5.1
4. v5.1.2
5. v5.1.4
6. v6.0
7. v6.0.1
8. v6.0.3

There are many reasons for doing so.

Recently, I encountered an error for FCP v6.0.2, which I covered in the end of this post (Be Replaceable, Have a Life).
Essentially, what I needed was to use v6.0.1 instead so that I wouldn’t keep losing my work due to corrupted project files and autosaves.

In addition, you might have people working on earlier versions of FCP that send you their project and you would definitely want to avoid “upgrading” their project file and preventing them from opening the file with your changes. XML export is getting better but some motion effects and transitions are still lost in the translation.

Keyboard Settings

This goes without saying. Look at this article (Get Fast FAST) for some recommendations on keyboard bindings, favorites and general efficiency hacks.

Window Layout

We’ve all got our preferences for our window layouts. Here are some of my recommendations.

Overlap the button bars of the viewer and canvas windows with the timeline
You need the vertical resolution of the timeline and you shouldn’t be using the buttons on the Viewer/Canvas.

Tear off the Effects tab from the Browser window.
It is annoying when you hit the command for either one and it’s the most recently activated tab that remains on top.

(Hint: Drag windows by holding cmd shift clicking them. You won’t need to use the titlebar and can drag them clicking on any part of the window.

Have your audio mixer readily available for mixing
Mix by recording keyframes and always have a clear indication of the your audio level settings on playback.

Save your settings with the particular monitor setup in the filename
For example, Dual-20′ Cinema Display x 2.fcwnl or Dual-LG22LWT & Phillips L17WGT.fcwnl

Create a custom Column Layout

Have only the information you need for your particular workflow.
Eliminate the irrelevant columns so everything that is in the window is useful to you.

Save a project with all your favorites

Keep your favorite motion path templates,effects,transitions and audio plugins in a project and save them on your thumbdrive to import them wherever you go.

Using Automator’s Watch Me Do function to automate FCP commands

I’m migrating from wordpress to my hosted server, so you can find everything here at www.luminoir.com from now on. All further updates will be reflected there.

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I thought you all might be interested to know how I’ve managed to use Automator’s new “Watch Me Do” feature to automate a rather complex sequence of events.

It’s pretty useful for repetitive tasks like the one I’m doing now which is replacing a set of 4 pictures in a simple animated sequence.

The steps executed are as follows.

• opening the inserted picture’s properties page,
• copying each picture’s filename (which has been strictly standardized for the execution of the next step, for more details check my post on standardized filenaming conventions)
• pasting it into LiveType
• stripping away the .jpg to make it a “title” (ie Alexandre Pato.jpg becomes Alexandre Pato)
• saving as the same filename but replacing .jpg with .ipr,
• returning to FCP, importing the newly created LiveType file
• inserting it into the graphic sequence
• repositioning and proceeding to the next item.

Because of certain ways that FCP works it is sometimes necessary to have certain conditions in place before the scripts work (eg auto-select tracks are toggled by cmd-numpad0).

There is no absolute deselect or select, so if a sequence has all, none or some auto-select tracks enabled, you do not know how the shortcut cmd-numpad0 will react, either selecting all or deselecting all. In my case, I made it such that all working sequences had all auto select track disabled.

That said, it opens a vast array of options which I think is very exciting in an incredibly nerdy way.

Here is a full list of the commands automated in this script.

Note that certain commands are not bound by default and my recommended non-default FCP keyboard binds are listed more completely in Get Fast FAST

Prerequisites

• Playhead on first frame of first image
• Image sequence with 4 images to be inserted placed directly after it
• Each nested sequence has image to be replaced selected

Command	Result
Cmd-5	Select Effects palette
Cmd-3	Select Timeline.The timeline needs to be selected, but if I only put a cmd-3 when it’s already selected, it deselects. Hence the cmd-5 first, as deselecting the effects palette does not affect the execution of the script.
Cmd-numpad1	Auto-select video track1
x	Select image1
Cmd-x	Cut image
Ctrl-g	Close gap.This brings the next image in the sequence into place to be processed
left arrow	Playhead to the last frame of the 5-layer image sequence.
cmd-numpad1	Deselect auto-select video track 1
cmd-numpad1	Deselect auto-select video track 2
opt-enter	Open video nest
Opt-v	Paste attributes of copied picture to pre-selected placeholder picture
click	Select contents
Enter
Cmd-9	Open picture attributes
Cmd-c	Copy filename.
Escape	To clear any open dialog boxes
Mouseclick LiveType in Dock
Escape	To close any open dialog boxes
Cmd-2
Cmd-1	This is the same as selecting the Effects palette, then the timeline: selecting a non-crucial window first to ensure that selecting the desired window does not deselect it if it is already active
Cmd-A	Select all text
Cmd-V	Paste copied filename. In episode 1, this is Alexandre Pato.jpg
Down	Go to end of text
backspace x4	Pressing backspace 4 times removes “.jpg” from the end of the file name: Alexandre Pato.
Up x2	Go to start of text
Opt-delete x3, then Delete	This deletes the file label. (“Episode 1: Connections”)
Cmd-shift-S	Save As
Cmd-V, backspace x4, enter	Pastes filename, deletes “.jpg”
Escape	Clears any dialog boxes
Click FCP in dock
Cmd-I	Import
Cmd-shift-G	Go to folder. Automator is set to then navigate to /Volumes/disc/folder/livetype
Cmd-2	Switch to Detail mode. You should set it to sort by Date Modified, with newest at top
Up	To select newest
Cmd-3	Switch back to 3-column view
Enter
Cmd-5	Select Effects Palette
Cmd-4	Select File Browser
Enter	Open imported LiveType file in Viewer
Cmd-3	Select Timeline
Home	Move playhead to start of sequence
Cmd-numpad3	Autoselect video in Track 3
x	Mark placeholder LiveType clip on Track 3
F6-3	Set Viewer Video Patch to Video Track 3
F10	Overwrite placeholder LiveType
Home, Enter	Select and Open LiveType file
Cmd-shift-]	I’ve bound this to Navigate tabs, this opens the Motion tab
Tab, 100, tab x3, 250	Set scale to 100, locate to x=0, y=250
Cmd-5	Select Effects Palette
Cmd-3	Select Timeline
Ctl-w	Close nested sequence tab
Cmd-numpad2	Deselect autoselected video track 2
Right	Move to next image

The cycle repeats with the next image but selecting a different track in the image sequence.

This process takes 8 minutes 26 seconds for Automator to execute. I only take about 3, but with more than 80 of these to do, it is very tedious. I scripted it to do about 12 episodes at once, then left to do other errands.

The hard part creating an automated workflow is that even your pauses are recorded. You can’t take too long to think about the next step, or you’ll have to manually edit the pause duration after the record.

Also, you sometimes need to pause longer so the software can catch to the steps executed, eg. opening a complex sequence, moving from a single video layer section to one that has many layers, etc.

Building custom workflows yourself isn’t complicated. You just need to be clear the exact steps required.

Get Fast FAST

I’m migrating from wordpress to my hosted server, so you can find everything here at www.luminoir.com from now on. All further updates will be reflected there.

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Get Fast fast

Let’s get one thing straight.

Being fast does not make you a good editor.
There are certain situations in which speed is the premium, either due to deadlines, workload or budget,
but in the long run, being fast isn’t quite enough.

Bearing that in mind, speed is still an important part of your arsenal.

What gets you on your way is mastering your tools
so that you have the quickest translation of what you see in your mind
to what you execute to the cut.

This tutorial won’t cover the more obvious basics of getting faster in FCP,
I think there’s plenty out there that covers that.

Hopefully, there are enough tricks here that even the old dogs haven’t used before.

How to approach binding keyboard shortcuts (and useful non default bound keys)

There are many opposing views on keyboard shortcuts.
Everyone has a preferred configuration so there’s no point quibbling about which is right.

Some people try to get their config as similar to avid as possible.
A person that takes over the station immediately after finds this out quickly
when they try to mark clip with x and finds their in to out ripple deleted.

My preference and approach when I started on FCP was to use the default config for a while before adding my own custom keys.
There’s no pointing spending half an hour setting keyboard shortcuts for an application I hadn’t used.

I used FCP for a few weeks before starting to add commands that I used with some regularity.

Here are some commands that are not bound by FCP by default that I recommend you bind. my bound keys follow, just as a suggestion

Command	Action
navigate tabs	cmd shift [ cmd shift ] (don’t click tabs any more, what a time waster!)
Export Export to Quicktime Export to Compressor	cmd e cmd shift e cmd opt e
Audio Normalization Gain	ctrl shift g
fav video effect	ctrl shift numpad (use all 9 keys of the numpad to bind your 9 most used effects)
fav motion path	ctrl opt numpad (use all 9 keys of the numpad to bind your 9 most used motion paths)
fav audio effect	cmd ctrl numpad (use all 9 keys of the numpad to bind your 9 most used effects)
reveal in finder	ctrl r
send to motion	ctrl shift m
deselect	cmd d (cmd shift a by default but I use it often enough that I don’t want to hold 2 modifier keys to use it

Find the find tool

The FCP find tool is one of the biggest timesavers of the software.
It’s perfect for finding the media/effect/part of timeline you need.

There’s a reason I bind my deselect key to cmd d.

The find tool searches from the selected file on the browser/effects palette/timeline.
Deselecting forces it to search from the top.

Basically it’s a rapid fire movement of holding cmd then hitting
3df for files in the timeline (See my previous article for useful applications of this)
4df for files in the browser
5df for effects in the effects palette
6df for effects in the favorites palette

This helps most if you know exactly what you are looking for.

So for gaussian blur, instead of opening the effects palette, expanding the blur folder and double clicking gaussian blur it’s
cmd 5df (open effects palette, deselect, open find dialog)
gaus (use a unique part of the full name of effect you need)
enter
the effect you want is then highlighted.

If you want the Chroma Keyer, you might put “chroma” as your search term
but this will bring up chroma key transitions first and you’ll have to scroll down.

It’s more effective to use “keyer”

Here are some phrases for commonly used effects to skip similar situations
gaus gaussian blur
keye chroma keyer
3- 3-way color corrector
flicke flicker filter
spill spill suppressor
interl interlace flicker

This, of course, varies depending on the 3rd party effects you have installed.

To get around this, you can favourite all the effects you absolutely always use
and search your favourites instead with
cmd 6df %phrase enter

Changing durations of files but retaining keyframes across new duration

We’ve all been there before.
We’ve painstaking used the motion tab to make a file move/crop/rotate on a motion path to perfection and now it needs to be 16 frames longer/shorter.

Instead of opening the motion tab and dragging keyframes around, copy the current file, extend/shorten it,
then paste motion/distort/crop attributes with the scale attribute times checkbox checked.

Changing motion effect to fit to fill without affecting sync

Whenever I had to speed effect a clip to fit to a duration, I used to create a new video layer,
move the file up, lock all others, change speed effect, unlock, move file back down, delete video layer.
Now, I’ve realized how slow that was after I starting doing it this way.

1. Set playhead to start of clip
2. set in point (i)
3. set out point at desired NEW end of clip (after speed effect)
4. go to canvas window (cmd 2)
5. select in/out duration (tab)
6. copy (cmd c)
7. select clip
8. cut (cmd x)
9. go to end of sequence (end)
10. paste (cmd v)
11. speed effect (cmd j)
12. paste (cmd v)
13. enter
14. cut (cmd x)
15. go to in point (shift i)
16. paste (cmd v)

Make Favourites your favourite tool

As mentioned earlier, I have my most used audio filters, motion paths (for resizing anamorphically stretched footage and correcting it with respect to a graphic crawler)
transitions and effects saved in my favorites. You can search them as suggested above, but what if you have a very specific set that you use all the time?

As you can see from my favorites folder I number them sequentially and bind my keyboard keys to be a modifier combination and the numpad.

This is because the # of the effect is based on creation order and I name the plugins based on that so I remember which number corresponds to which shortcut.
I create it based on frequency of use and over time it becomes second nature.
This makes all my favourite filters, motion paths a keypress away.

So I know instinctively that my motion path to fit anamorphically stretched footage into a gfx donut is ctrl opt 2 for example.
The modifiers for the filters used ctrl are for video, ctrl opt for motion path and ctrl shift for audio filters.

Autosave Duration

Hopefully, there’s been something in the article above that you’ve never used before and it has been useful to you in some way.

If you’re working faster, that means if FCP crashes 29 minutes after your last autosave and you left the autosave duration at its default value of 30 mins,
you’ve lost a lot more work that you need to do again, and that’s terribly demoralizing.

It’s slightly irritating to be interrupted every 5 minutes by an autosave
but less irritating than redoing that complicated key, secondary color correction, multicam cut from 29 minutes ago.