Final Cut Pro’s achilles heel or how I hate the reconnection dance

When you talk about media management in Final Cut Pro it’s often not a big issue to many as you digitize a few tapes or import some P2 media, add graphics, music and you’re done. FCP’s bad media management never rears its ugly head. But when you start working with many different clips across a lot of hard drives then the frustration can grow. And let’s not even talk about multiple editors working on the same job in different locations. Say you are cutting for a director that has an exact copy of your media on his computer and all he wants to do is open the project file, watch the edit, make notes and then send it back… you must both go through the reconnection dance each time you open the modified project. It’s a pain and a waste of time.

Avid to Apple Color - The Video

Late last year I posted a link and a step by step workflow to moving your RED edit from Avid Media Composer to Apple Color. You would think these applications, from two mortal enemies, wouldn’t really work well together. But apparently with this workflow they can. While the step-by-step form reduser.net was nice,this video from Avid Screencast (#15 Red Workflow iV - Conform from Avid to Apple’s Color) shows the process in a nice, concise 6 minute tutorial. See the embedded video after the jump.

Quicktip: Identify FCP filter in the timeline

One question I hear often is asking if there is a way to tell what filters are applied to a clip by looking at the clip in the Final Cut Pro timeline. The answer is yes. You must first turn on the Toggle Clip Keyframes button in the lower right corner of the timeline, or use the keyboard shortcut Option + T:

Using Dropbox for quick and easy client screeners

Dropbox is an unbelievably handy online file syncing, file sharing and backup service that performs a lot of amazing tasks at a free or affordable price. I have been a .Mac/Mobile Me user for several years now so I hadn’t used Dropbox until recently but now that I am using it I’m very impressed by the service. Check out the Useful Service for Editors: Dropbox article I recently posted on Studio Daily for more specific information on Dropbox. This article is about how to use Dropbox to make fast and easy QuickTimes for client screeners.

My 2010 New Years Resolutions

With 2010 now firmly established on my calendar and (kinda) in my mind it’s time to turn my attention to the venerable concept of New Year’s Resolutions. As one who makes resolutions annually and actually gives it a valiant effort to keep them all some of them, I wanted to outline a few professional resolutions that I have made to add to my personal ones. And since resolutions are really just goals I’ve always found my goals much more attainable when I write them down. So what better place to write them down than here on the Editblog. I hope someone holds me to them.

Today begins Backup Day

I think it’s time I face the honest truth in that I don’t do as good a job of backing up important files, projects and media on the computers in and around my life as I should. There’s a couple of floating firewire drives that I shuttle from computer to computer and then SuperDuper a clone or a disk image to that drive. And since a backup is only as good as the ability to get to it and restore it I try to send certain important documents offsite into the cloud. But it’s not with much regularity so I’ve decided to make myself a reminder to declare some point early in the month Backup Day!

More Avid Media Composer for the Final Cut Pro Editor

Continuing on an article in the last Pro Video Coalition newsletter, The Basics of Avid Media Composer for a Final Cut Pro Editor, this article will look at a number of other functions and how they differ from Final Cut Pro to Media Composer. One of the main reasons why I’m writing these articles is that Avid offers a free, full-featured demo of Avid Media Composer 4 available for download. When I wrote the first piece that demo was only for 14 days. They have since upped the time for this trial to 30 days. That’s great as it brings this demo in line with most free demos and even affords enough time to try to learn the in’s and out’s of the application a little bit better any maybe even use it on a real job.

FCP:  an annoying delete, duplicate bug found while I was remapping the FCP keyboard

When I’m working I’m always in a constant state of awareness about how I can change my keyboard mapping to make my workflow faster and more efficient. The keyboard manifesto argues that changing Final Cut Pro’s default keyboard mappings can make your editing faster and more efficient. But it’s also important to be aware of changes that you might make. I never would have expected a couple of keyboard changes to cause me an hour of confusion and rebuilding a timeline but that’s what this FCP bug did.

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