You probably know that it brings up the System Settings panel. Big deal, right?

Well, it really is a big deal to me and it’s the first command I hit every single time I open Final Cut Pro. In fact, using the System Settings panel effectively is, for me at least, one of the most important things I do in FCP for my sanity and my business. I call it the “Shift-Q Lifestyle” and here’s the deal…

THE PROBLEM:

As you may know, the first time you open a new project in FCP, the app creates a series of folders (see image at left). These folders are, by default, created in the following location: User/Documents/Final Cut Pro Documents and this is probably on your internal hard drive. This is where FCP will now dump your captures, renders and various other files it creates as you work on your project. If you don’t point your “Autosave Vault” away to another disk (which you should really do as you hate to put your safety copies on the same disk as your project in case that disk fails), it too will be located there.

This is a problem for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s not a great idea to store all of these hefty project files on your main internal systems boot disk. You should have a separate disk for FCP projects (which might also be internal, of course, but I often have dedicated external FW800 disks for large projects and I use secondary large internal SATA drives for multiple smaller projects). Secondly, if you are working on several projects (who isn’t?) or especially if you are part of a team that has to pass projects back and forth or access them over a network, the way FCP nests all of your projects into this single set of folders makes separating and quarantining multiple projects very tricky and time consuming. For each project you start, FCP will create folders with that name within this same set of folders such that there is no way to quickly pull one project out by itself without a lot of surgery in the Finder.

In my days as an FCP instructor at San Francisco State, I can’t tell you how many times I had to help various of my students untangle a gordian knot of convoluted, nested folders that had swallowed up their projects. It can be a real mess.

THE SOLUTION:

Here’s what I have done to streamline the workflow in my own shop. I created a comprehensive set of nested folders that not only provide a place to point my projects (using SHIFT Q), but that accomodate all the related files for my projects in one neat clean package. You can download this set of folders for yourself here or you can access it via the “Goodies” link at the top of the page. It’s a small gift to you.

Here’s what you get: A complete set of folders that will provide a parking space for every conceivable element of your project in order to give you a consistent way to organize and manage your projects. No more saving things out to the desktop for lack of a better place to put it. This will make handing files off between members of a team a snap and give an organization a consistent way to manage files so that everyone knows where to look for the things they need.

Best of all though, it gives you a place to point all your System Settings options every time you open FCP (and that’s important). Make sure that you start work on every FCP project by hitting SHIFT Q then quickly pointing your captures and renders (the stuff in the check mark boxes at the top) and the Waveform and Thumbnail Caches all to the “Project FCP Folder” and here’s a critical note: do not point them down into the folders within the Project FCP Folder (even if the Thumbnail or Waveform Caches already exist there) because it will create a new set within those and things will get messy. Again: only point to the “Project FCP Folder” and let FCP figure out the rest. I have given this folder a distinctive icon to make it easy to hit.

I do recommend that you point your Autosave Vault to a separate disk (I actually do save them to my boot disk) for redundancy. If you do, god forbid, lose the drive containing your project, at least you can rebuild by using your autosaved files.

I save my Projects to the appropriate “Project Files” folder–there are some options within the “Project Files” folder you see above. In fact, there are sub-folders in most of those folders, so check the whole thing out a bit and see where things go. I think it is pretty self-explanatory and you can, of course, modify it to suit your own needs. I keep a zipped copy of the folder set on all of my FCP disks and I unzip a fresh copy for each new project as soon as a client calls or emails me about it.

Hopefully this folder set will help you keep your own FCP projects well organized and neatly contained in separate, easy-to-move buckets for each project and I also hope you will now see the importance of using SHIFT Q every time you open FCP and join me in living the “Shift-Q Lifestyle!”

The proper workflow for setting up a rough cut is to select a clip in the Browser, open it up in the Viewer (which you can simply do by hitting RETURN with the clip selected) and then “trim” it, which means you set the in and out-points. From there, you should use F10 (or maybe F9) to send it to to the timeline (we’ll discuss these keys in a future post). The fast and efficient way to trim the clip in the Viewer is to use two simple shortcuts:

Use JK and L to scrub your clip and when you find the perfect in-point, simply hit I. Scrub on down to the end point and hit O. That’s all there is to it. If you’re using the GUI buttons on the Viewer, you’re wasting time and breaking the smooth flow of your ideas to the timeline.

If you hit X, you essentially mark the entire clip (sets in-point on first frame and out-point on last frame), but since that works the same as setting no in or out-points (you don’t have to have ‘em), there’s rarely a need to use X (we will however, cover its powerful usage on the timeline in a later post). If you want the whole clip sent to the timeline, just send it without trimming at all.

Change your mind about the in or out points? Just hit I or O again and they’re replaced. No need to delete the previous in or out as there can only be one and every time you hit I or O, the edit point updates.

OK, so you’ve trimmed your clip. What to snap your playhead to the in-point to play forward from there to see if you got it right?  Hit SHIFT I. Want to snap to the out-point?  SHIFT O.

Want to clear the in or out-point?  Hit OPT I or OPT O to clear them:

Want to clear both the in-point and the out-point at one time (I use this one quite frequently)? Use the OPT X shortcut:

These shortcuts are easy to remember as a group because they are all I and O. Add SHIFT to “go to” and OPT to delete.

Once you’ve mastered this and want to take your trimming operations in the Viewer up a serious notch, read this post.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 3/19/2010

For newcomers to FCP who may not yet be familiar with it, he N key duplicates the function of the “snapping” button found in the upper right corner of the Timeline.

When snapping is turned on you’ll notice that when you drag things around on the Timeline, they tend to magnetically “stick” to the ends of other clips, the Playhead, etc. This is very useful when you are trying to make sure you don’t accidentally overwrite another clip or leave a gap. It is also useful when you’re using some tools like the razor blade (although I have a much better solution for many of your Razor Blade operations). Snapping makes basic timeline positioning much easier and error-free in many cases.

On the other hand, snapping can be very annoying when you are trying to precisely position an overlay on Track 2 or manipulate opacity or audio levels keyframes you have created on the Timeline. In the end, it’s about a 50/50 proposition as to whether or not you want it on, so having a conveniently placed, single key shortcut is perfect here.

If you are not already using the N shortcut, start now and your editing will be much smoother. If you are an old hand at the Snapping toggle, then take a moment to honor the N key as… The King of Keyboard Shortcuts.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 2/27/2010.

Today’s lesson is pretty easy and it builds on another shortcut to round out your playhead skills.  First of all, let’s remember a key fact about FCP: whenever you edit a clip down to the timeline (hopefully by using F9 or F10 primarily), that new clip’s first frame will start exactly on the frame that is on the right side of the playhead. If you rely on shortcuts, you won’t create tiny one or two frame gaps on your timeline that you might not see immediately but will have to clean up later. Likewise, when you’re starting a fresh timeline, you want to start on frame 00:01. The easy way to ensure that you’re editing directly to frame :01 is by hitting the Home key:

Admittedly, whenever you create a fresh timeline, the Playhead is at frame :01 by default, so it’s not always an issue, but suppose you want to insert a leader or bumper at the head (first frame) of your timeline. If your instinct is to reach for the mouse to drag or click that Playhead to the front of the timeline, you have a bad habit.  Get used to hitting Home as the only way to position your Playhead at frame one. Once you’ve mastered that it’s pretty obvious that End takes you to the tail:

Easy enough.  Now (and of course you already know this), you can use the left and right arrow keys to forward or back a frame at a time:

(for JKL ninjas, holding down K while tapping J or L will do the same thing).  Add SHIFT to the arrow keys and they move a second at a time.  Now you’re cooking.

To take it all to the next level, you should learn how to surf edit points via the Up and Down Arrow keys as well.

If you can avoid using the mouse to move your Playhead around and you can switch window focus with shortcuts, you will get a lot more bang for your shortcutting buck and that will make you use them more. In order to fully master these skills, you might even practice or test yourself by putting the mouse out of reach as you rough cut a timeline.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 3/05/2010.

While keyboard remapping might be a good solution for a long time Avid editor who might find themselves working in a Final Cut Pro shop for a limited time (and I’ve seen this undoubtedly stressful scenario in some special events editing trailers) or perhaps for people with certain disabilities, but I generally think it’s a very bad idea. Why? Because many if not most editors will sometimes have to sit down at a “foreign” editing station at some point and they’ll find themselves utterly lost.

Another reason some people want to customize or change their shortcut keys is that they may feel uncomfortable with the current locations of shortcuts. They might want to relocate the functions of their F9 and F10 keys down lower on the keyboard for example, because they feel its more convenient. The problem with either of these scenarios however, is that you have now become a user base of one. With keyboard shortcuts, you should bear in mind that practice always overcomes initial inconvenience. Virtually all shortcuts take some time to get used to and to become imprinted into your “muscle memory.” Give it a bit of time and the stock layout will work just fine and I contend that its certainly no harder to learn that some arbitrary custom setup.

Years ago, I used to customize my computers extensively and thought myself quite the “power user.” When I started teaching and doing demos or working gigs on other people’s systems however, I was clumsy and slow.  I certainly wasn’t much of a power user then. I came to realize then that to get used to a clean “stock” system, like the ones that producers rent from companies like Bexel was the only way to go. Then you’re a power user at everywhere.

I feel obliged to point out however that yes, you can save your blasted custom shortcuts (Tools>Keyboard Layout>Save Keyboard Layout or Load Keyboard Layout), but then you’ll need to carry these files around on a thumb drive and what happens when you step away and another editor has to work a shift at your station? It just seems like a nuisance to me. At least there is a keyboard shortcut for loading keyboard shortcuts: OPT Y (which you might memorize by thinking of it as “option… why?).

I have similar feelings about those keyboards with all the shortcuts marked on them. While they may be of some use for getting accustomed to shortcuts (and I think that’s questionable), I fear that the color coding might make you overly dependent on them then and, rather than merely pulling out a small thumb drive to discreetly load your crutches shortcuts, you’ve got to travel around with a bulky keyboard in tow and I have never seen a Fox Sports or ABC Sports editor pulling one of those out of their bag in a rented edit trailer and am not sure how I’d react if I did.  Are you aware that some hard core coding geeks actually prefer blank keyboards?

Having said all that, I have to sheepishly admit that there is one (and only one) shortcut that I quickly establish at every workstation I use. At least it’s a shortcut that does not come stock and there’s nothing already programmed for those keys, so I’m not getting rid of an existing shortcut. Finally, it’s such a powerful shortcut and one that I use so often that I guess I’m willing to be a bit of a hypocrite over it and you can read all about it here.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 3/03/2010.

So why do I hate covering the wonderful Space Bar?

Well, I think it’s actually kind of evil because it’s too easy to use and it makes people develop the bad habit of playing back all their clips (in the Viewer, Canvas, Timeline and Capture and Transfer windows) by using their mouse to position the Playhead and hitting Space Bar to start and stop play. Usually, these users will then re-mouse the Playhead and start the process over. Compared to the use of JK and L for scrubbing, this is an inefficient workflow indeed.

Additionally, these bad Space Bar habits usually extend to the trimming process in the viewer when other shortcuts are more preferable there as well.

On the whole, I think it almost does more harm than good and while I admit that I myself will occasionally bang the Space Bar to initiate play on a clip (usually when I’ve opened up a fresh source clip in the Viewer for evaluation and am leaned way back in my editing chair sipping a Diet Coke and the L key is a smaller, harder-to-reach reach target), I try to avoid the nasty habit of using it as my “Play” key and I think you should too.

I hope you are having a great weekend and, unless you’re on a deadline (or you’re a fanatic), maybe you’re taking a break from the FCP keyboard? The Shortcutter is taking Sunday off and will be back on Monday with fresh content. May you never drop frames!

This shortcut was previously discussed on 2/28/2010.

CMD 1 gives focus to the Viewer, CMD 2 to the Canvas, CMD 3 to the Timeline and CMD 4 to the Browser. Note also that CMD 5 focuses the Effects tab of the Browser and CMD 6 opens and focuses the Favorite effects window, but these are rarely needed. You should however, burn CMD 1-4 into your memory and use them to jump around from window to window. A caveat and a tip after the jump…

One thing that can frustrate people when they first use these commands is that, if you accidentally hit one of them twice in succession, it will close the window in question. If that happens, simply hit the command another time and the window will reappear. Trust me, you will get used to this and once you learn to shift focus via keyboard shortcuts, you will get more mileage out of all your shortcut usage.

One of the nicest workflows in FCP can be achieved by using this command when laying out a rough cut. Try this:

1. Hit CMD 4 to activate the Browser.

2. Use the UP, DOWN, LEFT & RIGHT ARROWS to run up and down your through the contents of the Browser–note that the LEFT and RIGHT ARROWS will take you into Bins and nested bins. This means you can reach any clip in the Browser via these four keys–pretty neat!

3. To open a clip from the Browser into the Viewer for trimming, simply hit ENTER when the desired clip is highlighted. Set your in and out-points (using JKL to scrub and I and O to set the edit points, of course), then hit F10 or F9 to send the clip to the timeline. Note that the Timeline now has focus (nice touch, FCP team) in case you need to further trim or perhaps scrub and play.

Now you’re ready to repeat the process. If you have the discipline to get used to this technique, you will lay down rough cuts in a fraction of the time it would take you using the mouse.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 2/25/2010.

It’s a good habit to use these keys to position yourself because, and this is the key thing to remember: they always stop on the first frame of the “incoming” clip (the clip on the right side of the playhead). This means that, when you navigate by the Up and Down Arrows, you’re always going to hit the exact right spot for the overwrite or insert edit.

Closely related is the trick of adding the Shift Key to navigate your timeline Markers.

There are even more cool applications of the Up and Down Arrow command in terms of navigating though selected edit points, but alas, that’s something we’ll explore on another day.

And here’s a related tip. Whenever I am reviewing a timeline with a client present and they’re giving me notes, I like to add a marker for each note and type the notes right into it (you might duplicate your sequence first and then clear all markers with CTRL – Acute which is also known as the the “tilde” key, but more on that another time). To go through and make the various changes and tweaks, I then just ride up and down the timeline from marker to marker using SHIFT Up and Down Arrows and as I tick off each edit, I hit CMD Acute to delete it.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 2/20/2010.

Most of these slowpokes are inclined to grasp the mouse with one hand while the index finger of their other hand hovers over the space bar. They point and click all over the timeline and start and stop the clip by banging the space bar. Not only is this a waste of time, but there’re giving up the tremendous control that these keys offer for slewing tape. This is no way to scrub clips, my friend!

Some people also like to use third party devices like the Contour Shuttle Pro which is all well and good, but they make you dependent on non-standard gear and I believe that’s a bad road to go down (same with those silly color-coded keyboards). I believe the best editors do not need to carry a pile of custom gear along to every gig to make things work. The most flexible pro can sit down at any edit bay and jump right in if he or she uses native shortcuts. As a related aside, I also discourage customizing your keyboard shortcuts (with a very few notable exceptions) because that will also make you too dependent on your own one-off set up and you’d be hamstrung if you sat down at my editing station in a pinch and had to get something up to the bird with a stressed out Producer riding your back. You’ll look like a total klutz and that’s not pretty.

These three keys, once you develop the habit, are among the most important shortcuts in FCP. You can use them in the canvas, the viewer, on the timeline and they’re especially great in the capture window where they give you perfect control of your tape deck.

J goes backwards, L goes forward and K stops. But that’s not all. When you repeatedly press J or L, the speed of your playback increases. To gear back down, press the opposite key (no need to hit K to stop and restart). Press J or L while holding K down and you’ve got slow motion (hit SHIFT-S to turn on audio scrubbing, if you desire and you’ve got a great way to pinpoint an audio-centric edit). Tap J and J repeatedly while holding K down and you step through one frame at a time.

At first, this may indeed seem awkward (so does learning to play the piano), but rest assured, as with most great shortcuts, this one will eventually go deep into “muscle memory” and once you have the habit, you’ll never want to scrub any other way again.

This shortcut was previously discussed on 2/19/2010.

I have called N (toggle snapping) the “King of the Shortcuts” because it is easy to use, easy to grasp and, for many, it is the first useful shortcut they adopt. It works on its own no matter what workflow you use and is thus a shortcut for all people. F10’s greatness however, requires more workflow knowledge and finesse to fully appreciate.

If you are living in the steaming swamps of opening clips in the Browser by mouse-dragging them from thereto the Viewer then dragging the trimmed clips to the timeline or, heaven forfend, you’re dragging your clips directly from the Browser to the Timeline and (it pains me even to write these words) trimming them there, F10 won’t seem like a big deal to you.

Although it’s a step up on the evolutionary ladder, the workflow of dragging your trimmed clips over to the canvas to use the (admittedly very cool looking) clip overlays (which at least present the “with transition” option) is still a relative knuckle-dragger.

If you are using the fully evolved shortcut workflow though, you can surely see the elegance of this fine key. First of all, once you’ve trimmed your clip in the Viewer, you needn’t change focus to the Timeline, you simply hit F10 to send the trimmed clip down where it will land precisely at the Playhead position (and it will still work even if the Viewer is not in focus). Once the clip is placed, the Playhead will automatically position itself at the end of the clip, ready for your next F10‘d cut. With F10, you never send the clip to the wrong place (be sure to use the Source/Destination Target buttons to manage track destinations, which we will discuss here in a future post).

On the whole, I consider F10 the best of all the shortcuts not just for the time it saves you, but for the way it fits into a healthy, efficient shortcut workflow.

Note that (just as with F9) you can add the SHIFT modifier to perform an overwrite edit with the default transition (usually a cross-dissolve).

If you are not currently using F10, I suggest you try it all day today and make this the first day of your new Shortcutter Life.