workflow: trading sequences with an assistant

My assistant has FCP 5 on her laptop (an old laptop with only 512MB of RAM that won't install 6.0).

I'm cutting on a MacPro with FCP 6.0.5.

I want to give her a clip to cut down on her machine, then get it back from her and add to my project. The trick is maintaining the master clip relationship so that I can Match Frame and Reveal Master Clip in my project.

If I give her the .mov file of the clip and she starts a new FCP 5 project and cuts the clip down in a new sequence and gives me that, then obviously the clip, once it's in my project, won't be associated with the master clip in my project.

If we had the same version of FCP, I would duplicate my project and give her that plus the relevant material.

Is there a creative way to do this with our setup? Short of upgrading her system?

Thanks.

Export an .xml version of the project. It seems to preserve master clip affiliations when i open it in FCP 6, but do run a short test to check.

>Is there a creative way to do this with our setup?

Yup, hop on one leg and bark loudly while you're exporting to xml.



www.strypesinpost.com

Just reconnect to the clip on your end. SHould be very easy.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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Reconnecting is easy, Match Frame is easy, but Reveal Master Clip doesn't work.

From my experience, I think that FCP is still thinking that the Master Clip relationship of the clip in the sequence my assistant gave me is in my assistant's project, not mine. I don't know of a way of reassigning that.

I don't understand what you are saying then. YOu have a clip...one clip. You give that clip to your assistant to edit. They edit, they return the cut to you. You open the cut and reconnect the sequence to the file on your hard drive.

What am I missing? That you can now NOT match frame to the clip in your Browser? Nope...because the clip used was used in their project. BUT, you can press Shift F and add it again..make a bin with the clips you gave to them.

Once you take a clip and cut it into a sequence that is NOT in the main project where it resides, the affiliation is broken. FCP cannot match back to clips across project files.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Thanks, Shane.

Quote
Shane
You have a clip...one clip. You give that clip to your assistant to edit. They edit, they return the cut to you. You open the cut and reconnect the sequence to the file on your hard drive. What am I missing? That you can now NOT match frame to the clip in your Browser? Nope...because the clip used was used in their project.

Yes.

Quote
Shane
you can press Shift F and add it again..make a bin with the clips you gave to them.

I don't follow you here. What do you mean "add it again"?

Am I exaggerating if I say it's a huge gigantic pain in the ass to work on a FCP project if you're going to have assistants cutting sequences and giving them to you? How do you do it?! Do you just keep duplicating the "main project" and updating the assistant stations? How do Murch and his minions do it?!

But you guys have heard all this before, right? It goes back to FCP's feeble media management architecture, I suppose.

It makes me want to scream. Scream! AND cut on Avid next time I'm working on something with assistants. Unless there is something I'm missing here.

>Am I exaggerating if I say it's a huge gigantic pain in the ass to work on a FCP project if you're going to have assistants cutting sequences and giving them to you?

Yes, you are. Because you are trying to apply Avid mentality to FCP, and that will fail every time. DON'T. Learn how FCP does things...be happy.

>How do you do it?!

Give the Assistant the main project and all the media...unless they are connected to the SAN in which they have access to all the media. This way they have ALL the master clips. They take the project you gave them and add their initials to it. Then they cut their sequence. Then they give their project to you and you open it, copy over the sequence they cut, and then you can match back all you want, because it is the SAME project.

>How do Murch and his minions do it?!

Gotta ask him.

You gotta learn how to use FCP and how FCP does things. ANd if you don't know, hire someone who does, otherwise you are fumbling in the dark.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

People complain about FCP's file management and media structure, but the fact is, having one project file for bins, sequences and clips -- instead of so many little mini-files as Avid does -- is a substantial convenience. Not to mention the ability to have more than one project file open, more than one timeline open, and have them trade components.

I do hope to see improvements in XMLs, though. I cut a show from April to June where three stations, with one FCP5.1.4 station (my home system) involved. We often had to split one bin into three parts before the exported XMLs would work. Huge pain in the neck.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks for your help, Shane. I picked the wrong place to vent, I know.

As you can tell if you reread my first email, I do understand how FCP does things, but I was hoping for an insightful workaround. I do hear you when you say don't apply Avid mentality to FCP. Can't help it sometimes, even thought I've been cutting on FCP for awhile now.

Quote
Shane
You gotta learn how to use FCP and how FCP does things. ANd if you don't know, hire someone who does, otherwise you are fumbling in the dark.

I really appreciate all the help you provide in the various forums you post on, Shane, but this time I could do without the lecturing tone of your last comment and the flippant suggestion that I hire someone else to do my work for me.

> I could do without the lecturing tone of your last comment and the flippant suggestion that I
> hire someone else

If you find that sometimes you get a "lecturing tone" from moderators, Garret, it's because it's part of the job of a good consultant to tell it like it is. As for hiring someone else, I'm pretty knowledgeable about Final Cut Pro behaviour, and I still got hosed when my show hired an inexperienced assistant. Getting help from a good, knowledgeable assistant is just a sensible work approach, not shirking responsibility.

I'd ask that you kindly not start attacking people who are helping you for free. Because they really should be getting paid a huge day rate to help you figure things out. Instead they use up breaks at work to talk to you and give advice. That's hardly "flippant".

Back to topic. Making a new master clip using a component (affiliate) in the timeline is a very common FCP strategy:

> you can press Shift F and add it again..make a bin with the clips you gave to them.

Since we don't see the downside to doing so, we also don't really understand why you don't want to do it.


www.derekmok.com

Sorry...I didn't know what level you operated on. It isn't a flippant suggestion. And it isn't that you need to hire someone to do your job, but you can hire an assistant that knows FCP like the back of their hand, or someone as a consultant to show you the workflow you need to use to accomplish what you want to do. Sometimes that might be the person who sets up the SAN, or someone you just hire outright...and expert. We did this many times when starting out on Unity, or when trying to figure out how to share projects and get the media to multiple editors BEFORE Unity came about.

About the lecturing tone...again, sorry. But I have met many an Avid editor that bitched and moaned about how FCP sucks and doesn't work and "oh, it's broken" and how it didn't do this or that....and it boiled down to them trying to do things the Avid way and many time refusing to learn how FCP did it, or work in the way FCP needs to work. I still get that today.

If people bitch how FCP doesn't work like an Avid then I lecture and say those things. Nothing personal.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Quote

If you find that sometimes you get a "lecturing tone" from moderators, Garret, it's because it's part of the job of a good consultant to tell it like it is.

Not to mention, we're all human beings, and we're doing this for free, 'cause we enjoy it or for the karma points or whatever our personal reasons are. I won't speak for Shane or Derek or anybody else here, but you bet, sometimes I get snippy as hell on the forum, and it's almost always for reasons totally unrelated to anything going on on the forum. It's 'cause my girlfriend got on my nerves or a client ticked me off or they ran out of soy milk at Starbucks. Whatever. Point is, we're all human. Add that on top of the fact that it's just inherently difficult to communicate well in writing, and bam, here we are.

As for Shane, I'm lucky enough to know him very slightly, and I'd be hard pressed to name a single figure in the industry who's gone out of his way more and with more enthusiasm to help complete strangers for no personal gain whatsoever. He's got a hell of a reputation, and he stands behind his name, and because of that, if I were you I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. If something he says comes off to you as flippant or condescending, just assume he didn't mean it that way, because I promise you, he didn't.

Not that it's my place to defend him or anything ?

Ugh. Okay, I'm gonna stop typing now.

Quote

Reconnecting is easy, Match Frame is easy, but Reveal Master Clip doesn't work.

i suspect the issue is either what your assistant is giving back to you in the XML,
or how you are opening it.
(or both!)

the Master Affiliate clip relationship in FCP is very fragile, and can be easily broken.

one scenario i found is that you can have a perfectly working M/A relationship in one project,
but if you copy both the browser clip AND a sequence containing it into a new project, the relationship is broken.

the workaround is to copy the browser clips and the sequence separately into the new project (2 separate copy/pastes)

same thing happens with multiclips, and they have to be copied separately, too.
on the feature i did last year, my assistant would prepare rushes for me in daily scene projects,
then i would have to copy Clips, Multiclips and Rushes Sequences across into my master edit projects separately.

so, yeah, i'd say this is something of a PIA

getting to the point, it could be that your assistant is including both Browser clips and the cut sequence in the XML.

the other point is how are you opening the XMLs?

if you open them INTO your existing project, the new clips wont relate to the existing ones.
the trick is to open them into a NEW project, and then do a copy/paste across to your edit project.

now, i don't know this for certain.
but a similar issue came up here a while back, and i suggested that this might be the solution,
and i that case it worked.

Quote

Am I exaggerating if I say it's a huge gigantic pain in the ass to work on a FCP project if you're going to have assistants cutting sequences and giving them to you?

see above!
i suspect a lot of feature editors just don't worry about the M/A relationship.
on a drama, the slate number itself will guide you back to the right bin quickly enough.
on a doco it can be a bit harder

another joy to look forward to is one day opening the project, and getting a warning saying that your Master Affiliate relationships are corrupt.
blam! none of the clips match back to the bins anymore.

that's happened to me a few times.
once i just lived with it,
the next time, i closed the project without saving, and opened it on another machine hooked up to the SAN.
opened fine on that machine, and then on mine again.
go figure.

another time with no SAN set-up, i think i opened the last autosave and it was ok.



oh, one last thing about XMLs.
the simpler the better.
porting whole (large) projects back and forth can be tediously time-consuming, and there is more that can go wrong.


all the best,
nick

Actually, he only needs to export it out to xml once- when he sends it to FCP 5, after which, he can directly open up the project file in FCP 6.



www.strypesinpost.com

oh, yeah, that's right. (slapping forehead)
and that's what Garret says he is doing.

then i'm not sure WHY the clip wont re-affiliate itself.
that should work.
maybe something to do with the assistant project originating as V5?
maybe the clip isn't there, as Shane read it, but i thought from Garret's post that it is.

clutching at straws:
make sure to copy only the cut sequence into your project,
no browser clips.

or try G's XML suggestion


nick

Guys,

I really do appreciate all the advice and help you give in the forums. I always know I can come here and get good, insightful answers delivered with a smile. Shane, you're always helpful and enthusiastic. I should have just written you a friendly private email if I had a problem with the way you said something. I'm over it. I know you meant no harm. (I know better than to complain on this forum about the way FCP does things! But I slipped.)

I do love to hire experienced assistants when the budget allows for it. It doesn't this time.

Nick and strypes, thanks for your advice on XMLs. I may try that, but for now I'll make copies of the master project as Shane describes. I'm familiar with that approach, so I'll stick with it.

Quote
Derek and Shane
Back to topic. Making a new master clip using a component (affiliate) in the timeline is a very common FCP strategy:

> you can press Shift F and add it again..make a bin with the clips you gave to them.

My fault, but I'm missing something here. Not sure what is being described here and how it makes a new master clip. I think it's the "add it again" part that's confusing me.

Thanks,
Garret

but, unless i've taken a wrong turn here, the only way to make a copy of the master that will work on your assistants machine is via XML,
and that's a bear, as i mentioned, on "whole Projects"

you know, most of this pain could be avoided by getting 2 machines with the same version of FCP.

Quote

Not sure what is being described here and how it makes a new master clip. I think it's the "add it again" part that's confusing me.

the scenario as i understand it is you have a bunch of clips on your project,
you give a FILE to your assistant who works on it in her version of FCP,
she gives you her project, which you open, updating it to FCP6 status as you do so.

you bring her sequence into your project, and want to do a "Reveal in Browser" on the clip, but it wont do it for some reason.
now at this stage you should get a warning saying "Master Clip not present, would you like to ADD IT" (or similar)

Shane is suggesting you just say YES,
but this had problems.

you will now have TWO clips in the project that are the same clip, but behave as individual master clips.
maybe that's not a big deal.
you could always delete the original one, and replace it with yours, BUT...

bummer#1:
what if you've used that clip in a sequence?
now YOUR sequence clip will have no Master.

bummer#2:
what if you've added log notes or heaps of markers to your clip?
this new one wont have any of those.

so you either A: figure out some way to copy all your notes & markers across to this new clip,
or B: over-cut your assistant's sequence with your true Master clip.

you would NOT be exaggerating to say it's a huge gigantic pain in the ass.

the thing is bringing a sequence of clips into a project that already has that clip in the browser SHOULD WORK, in terms of the new clip automatically affiliating with the browser master.

is there some discrepancy between the clip names?
have you re-named the clips in your browser,
while your assistant's version is named after the .mov file?


but i'll come back to this:
bouncing between 2 versions of FCP is asking for trouble.
i can tell you Murch etc DONT work this way!


hope that helps a bit,
nick

Nick, that's a great feature request-- Paste Attributes ought to have a Markers and Comments checkbox!

- Loren
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hey, yeah, you're right, Lorren.... why haven't we thought of that in the last 10 years!

ok, a thing i LIKE about FCP6 is the way when you re-introduce a pre-existing clip into a project,
and if it has DIFFERENT log notes, or colour labels,
you get a warning, and an option to chose one set of data over the other (or create a whole new master clip)

so you see the system SHOULD work.


Garret,
apart from the difference in FCP version,
the next most obvious place for things to not work in your workflow is you giving your assistant the .mov FILE.

i reckon the first thing you should try is exporting the clip as an XML.
or maybe a little safer (gut feelings, here, bordering on suppression) YOU make a new project with the clips/s you want your assistant to work on,
save it,
than make an XML from there.

fro there you should experiment with opening her project into FCP6,
and her giving you an XML file back.

for my money, there's nothing to be gained by wrestling with a "Whole Project" XML.
all you're going to take back from it are her cut sequences anyway.


i think this is what Gerard suggested up front,
but it's been an interesting discussion along the way

cheers,
nick