Pen Tool? Why Would Anyone Use It?

Ah, the Pen Tool. Forget it. Utterly worthless.

Seeing as the Selection Tool (A) becomes a Pen Tool when you hold OPTION and you automatically get a Pen Tool when you hover over an animation path in the Canvas, why would anyone ever go to the trouble of using it?  Seriously… I want to know. In my many years of using FCP in virtually every situation imaginable, I don’t believe I’ve ever invoked the Pen Tool. If there is a cogent argument to made for its very existence, let alone its usage, could someone please let me know? There must be something I’m missing here. If you actually use the Pen Tool and did not know that you can simply hold OPTION with the Selection Tool for adjusting audio levels and opacity in the timeline with the clip overlays turned on, you owe me a White Russian.

Kind of a rip-off for a shortcut of the day, I realize (though I’ve pledged to cover ‘em all and this is a weekend post), so let me make it up to you by giving you this hopefully useful, but completely unrelated non-shortcut FCP tip:

Are you aware of the Batch Export Queue? Select a few sequences in your browser, Menu surf to File>Batch Export and the Batch Export window pops up. Select each item and hit the settings button on the bottom of the window to set up the particulars. I’ll let you explore the rest, but I’ll tell you this, it’s underused and very powerful. Once you have stuff added to the queue, you can also access it via Window>Export Queue. I think it’s underused because its not covered in the FCP 101 curriculum for Apple Certified Training. It’s a little less hassle than sending stuff out to Compressor for simple export jobs and I use it all the time.