Tip for editing with XDCAM or P2 - multiple clips

I hate ending up with hundreds of individual clips you get shooting with XDCAM or P2? - makes editing a big headache. No more scrub through a reel and find what you want - it's pick and choose from too many clips in a bin

Searched hi and low to find a solution - and Shane Ross offered one but with missing details in another forum.

If you like the scrub - find clip - in out edit of the old fashioned tape reels - you will like this

1 line all your XDCAM or P2 "reel" or Card clips in browser - each reel gets it's own bin

2 - click on time code column so they run in order 1st time code to last for each real ? then edit them into a sequence and make that sequence your ?reel? for each disk or card

Great for scrubbing quickly through clips ..BUT...when you go to edit ? you have to match frame back to the original clip and then put in and out points and THEN edit it into your new sequence

Gives you a headache in your eye

But the the solution is buried in the online Final Cut Pro manual

You can read the step by step here in

Final Cut Pro manual - unnesting sequences


But the simple solution is


1 ? OPTION double click on your sequence with your ?reel? of clips so it opens in the viewer
2 ? scrub through to find your in and out point and put those in on your viewer clip reel
3 ? here?s the beautiful part!!! - in your new timeline ? make sure you have your in and out points ? THEN hold the command key (they one with a cloverleaf next to the space bar) down while dragging the viewer clip to the Canvas window and chose insert or over write)

You will have successfully un-nested that clip from the REEL SEQUENCE nest and put the original clip into the time-line


This is now an enormous editing time saver -- I'm sure many of the veterans already know this -- but I'm a vet too and either didn't know or had forgotten - hope this is helpful to the solid state media editors.

There's another trick for XDCAM to avoid every shot becoming a new clip -- have your photographer dig into the menu and turn on "continuous clip" -- there are pros and cons to this

Pro -- you get one long clips with lots of markers where the camera stopped and started so you can scrub through it

Con - you can not easily review the clip in the camera after shooting -- nor can you quickly start editing once you start bringing in clips through log and transfer because it has to ingest the entire clip

but we do a lot of long form - no short deadline work - and this is easier for editing

hope this is helpful

Andy

The command for this is called "overwrite sequence content/insert sequence content" It's in the Keyboard and button layout lists. It is the first modification I make to any new installation of FCP that I am going to work on.
I don't know why FCP doesn't have this as the default behavior for sequence to sequence editing. I would think the nesting edit would be less useful, but hey, what do I know.

Still wish someone would design a function to make sequences, just like your cam rolls, so they act exactly like clips: load into the viewer, be the first match frame choice, etc. Managing rolls and rolls of doc footage would be easier with something like this.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

I usually pop my rushes into a sequence, but I don't like to load them into a viewer, because you can't zoom in on the timeline in the viewer to scrub more precisely to find a shot.



www.strypesinpost.com

Andrew

Quick question -- loading a sequence into the "viewer" should be as simple as option double clicking the sequence in the browser -- but in fact it just opens a new window that looks like the viewer but is not -- because when I remap the keys as you described and tried to edit it in to the timeline with F9 or F10 - it inserts a slug - not what's in the viewer

BUT if I drag the sequence into the actual Viewer window - those keys DO work

Is there a way to double click a sequence and put it in the actual viewer without dragging it to the viewer window?

Thanks Andy

Andy, I'm seeing that same behaviour as well. Looks to me like OPTION-double-clicking in the Browser opens the Sequence as an individual clip window that's not in the Viewer -- similar to opening a movie file inside OS by using APPLE-O within FCP.

Normally if I want to open a Sequence as a clip, I single-click and press Return. But that doesn't work if the Sequence is in the Browser (it will open in the Timeline window, not the Viewer); it works only if the Sequence is already nested in a timeline.

So I guess if your Sequences are in the Browser only, the answer would be no.


www.derekmok.com

Yeah Andy, what Derek said.

The workflow you're looking for is what I have been wishing for since AVID MC 5.0 days (first v5.0 not the v5.0 they just released). Build a cam reel, tell the interface it's a clip and forget about it.

On reality shows it's common for me to have big "day reels":everything that was shot on a specific day synced to T.O.D. TC. Helpful when a field producer is in the room and can recall when something happened if not what tape it's on or what camera shot it. There will be huge gaps where nothing was being shot so you can break the day down into segments. When you have multiple cameras shooting multiple areas or simultaneous activities, multicam setups don't quite fit the bill. Close but not quite.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Did you try to work with a QT reference for the day reel instead of working with sequences?

Quote
hamaca
Did you try to work with a QT reference for the day reel instead of working with sequences?

I have tried that once. Wouldn't bet a big project on it though.
If it was a tape based show that was going to be recaptured in an online I would consider it again.
Too many things can go horribly wrong if you lose the QT reference connection. AFAIK there isn't any way to reconnect from QT reference.

Theoretically though, the QT reference model is how it should work and could if QTrefs were more robust.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

> Did you try to work with a QT reference for the day reel instead of working with sequences?

I'd argue that editing with a re-exported movie file is usually to be avoided, even if the movie file is self-contained. You lose any relation to the original raw media, such as timecode, and you have to be working at online quality. It's a quickie solution, and I don't consider it a very good one.


www.derekmok.com