Putting it all Together for a Killer Workflow!

All this week, we have spent time on some simple building blocks that I have promised, when taken together, would culminate in one of Final Cut Pro’s most elegant workflow scenarios. Well, today we tie it all up with a bow and push it out the door. It might make sense for you to have an FCP project open so you can sing along and practice the process. Here we go!

1. Make sure you are in the Timeline (if not, hit CMD 3 to give the timeline focus). Hit HOME to take your playhead to the head of your sequence.

2. Hit V to select the nearest edit point (realizing that this will choose the nearest edit on Video Track 1, but you can learn more about the options here).

At this point you may want to review the way the edit point plays, so you can “play around” with a tap of the backslash key (you may want to be sure your user prefs for “editing” are set for a pre-roll of maybe 2 seconds and a post roll of the same).

3. Having reviewed how the edit looks, you will determine whether you need to roll the edit or, more likely, you’ll need to adjust the out-point of the clip on the left side (the “outgoing clip”) or the in-point of the clip on the right side (the “incoming clip”) with a “ripple edit.” Cycle thorough the options with U

Note that U cycles you through selection of either both sides of the edit point (for a roll edit) or just the left side (for ripple editing the out-point of the incoming clip) or just the right side (for the in-point of the incoming clip).

4. Now you are ready to adjust your edit. If you want to Ripple edit, you could hit RR for the Ripple Tool (or R for the Roll Tool). At this point, you would reach for your mouse (and the benefit of Ripple and Roll editing with the mouse is that is gives you a two-up edit window in the Canvas). You would then position the Ripple tool over the edit point and adjust. But here’s where things get interesting! You don’t need the mouse at all. With one of those three edit point options selected (via U), simply use the left and right bracket keys to perform the roll or ripple edit.

FCP will know whether you’re trying to roll or ripple based on the edit point selection, so you don’t even need to select the Ripple or Roll tools at all! If, for example, you tap on the left bracket with the left side of the edit point selected, you’ll see the outgoing clip’s out-point move a frame earlier for each tap! Hit the right bracket and watch it move the other way. Cycle to the other side with U and tap on the left or right bracket and watch the in-point on that incoming clip move! That is an awesome way to adjust an edit point. Want to roll the edit point? Use U to cycle to the “both side” option and hit the brackets. Add SHIFT and you’ll move in 5 frame increments! Be sure to use play around (the backslash) frequently to review your work.

Now that’s a killer workflow! But we’re not done yet. Once you’ve perfected your edit point, it’s time to methodically move on to the next edit point, so, with the edit point still selected, hit the up and down arrow keys to surf to the next edit point and it will already be selected!

Then, as they say on the shampoo bottle, “lather, rinse and repeat.” Or rather, U, brackets, backslash and arrow on to the next adjustment task. You can fine tune an edit so quickly this way that you may finally be able to let go of some of your inefficient control-freakishness when trimming clips in the Viewer. You can lay down a rough cut quickly and fine tune it with ease and precsiion in the Timeline. You will have reached editing nirvana.

So what about the Slip and Slide edits?  Why did I mention those yesterday and how do they factor in? Well, I’ll discuss that after the jump (this post is getting a bit longish, after all)…

I mentioned Slip and Slide yesterday because they too work with the fabuolus left and right bracket shortcut, but they are alas unrelated to the V and U edit point slection bit.

As you encounter clips on your timeline that might require a slide, or, more likely a slip adjustment, you will have to select them (yes, with a mouse, dang it, but that’s a rant for another day–really) and then, as you’ll see, the left and right bracket (and SHIFT modifier) work beautifully with them as well.

Between the Roll, Ripple, Slip and Slide edits, you can make just about any fine-tuning adjustment imaginable on your timeline and, coupled with the V and U shortcuts and the way FCP tends to automatically shift window focus when you use shortcuts (like RETURN to open clips in the Viewer and F10 to send them to the timeline), you have an amazingly efficient way to edit.