The Editblog

Over a year ago I followed up a post about my top 10 Final Cut Pro tips with a lost of the “bottom 10 tips.” Really it was all about stuff that just annoyed me about FCP. That was written way back around v. 5.1.1. Over a year, many incremental updates and one major upgrade later, have any of these personal gripes been fixed or changed? I thought that with the recent release of 6.0.2 it was worth revisiting.

FCP launch. I work on multiple projects at once. There is a preference that you can set that will make FCP automatically launch the last project you worked on. I usually do not want that. Deselect that and you get an untitled project. I definitely do not want that and I really don’t like to have to take the time to close the project and tell it not to save. That is time wasted. Let’s have the option of having no project open or some kind of open dialog box.

Fixed? Kinda. In 6.0.2 Apple added the ability to override the option to open the last project when booting up FCP. If you hold down the SHIFT key while launching the app it will open a new project instead of the last one you were working on. I guess this is a nice addition but why in the world they can’t include the option of not opening any project, old or new, upon booting is beyond me.

Keyframing is necessary if you are doing effects. Often you will set up many different keyframes to get an effect or filter just right to only then have to shorten or lengthen the clip. Of course the keyframes don’t move. This can be a big pain. Of course if they did then the effect parameters would change but this is way more desirable than having to move the keyframes by hand. In the graphic above, there is only one keyframe to change. But if you have multiple keyframes this can be a big pain. These “moving” types of keyframes are called elastic keyframes in some other apps. Let’s have the option of moving the keyframes with the changing duration of a clip. Please! And if you look at the above graphic real closely you can see the time marker redraw problem that happens on occasion when you zoom around the magnification. That’s a pain too.

Fixed? Not at all. I’ve just dragged the beginning and end of a clips using every possible modifier key combination I can think of and still those keyframes won’t move even one frame. As much as one had to use keyframes and the adjust the duration of a clip you would think in 6 versions there would be some way adjust keyframes when adjusting clip length. Even worse there is NO WAY TO SELECT MULTIPLE KEYFRAMES. This is an almost inexcusable oversight. Am I missing something here? Is there some kind of keyframe modification tools and commands that I’m unaware of?

Auxiliary timecode. Aux timecode is a must have in music videos. Often you will have 10, 20, 30 takes of a song that begin at different places throughout. The song is played back off of something that generates timecode and that syncs to a timecode slate. One take might run for the first minute of a song and one the last minute. Thus you must assign the corresponding timecode to the auxiliary timecode track.

The problem in FCP is that if you make subclips of all these takes, when you change the aux timecode of one it ripples a change in the aux timecode through all the other subclips made from the same master clip. Not good. A common workaround is to capture each take as it’s own master clip. But working in an offline environment with a dv deck and its slow tape transport can be a HUGE pain, especially with 30+ takes. Please fix AUX TC!!!

Fixed? Not even close. This thread over on the Apple discussions sums it up best: “This [auxiliary timecode behavior] makes it completely non-functional in a professional environment especially when several takes in a row will be on the same tape for example in a music video.” Amen. To properly use aux tc with a music video in FCP you have to log each take from slate to slate as its own master clip and for a video with 100+ takes this is a useless time consuming exercise. The solution? Cut music videos in Avid.

Motion effects from offline to online. Motion effects are great. Slo mos, fast mos, time remapping. All handy and useful. But when you have to online, or up rez, or recapture or move a project  via EDL or XML or FCP project  I usually see these motion effects turn into a freeze frame or a crazy super fast motion clip of gobbledygook. It would be nice if this didn’t happen.

Fixed? Maybe. I had an online a few weeks ago where some motion effects came across while others did not so I am clueless on this one.

FCP needs a WYSIWYG title tool. There is something very simple and very elegant about being able click in the canvas with a  “title tool” and type right over picture. Then you can easily change sizes, fonts, and such right there. Like, maybe a title tool that resembles… oh, I don’t know.. Motion?

Fixed? Keep dreaming. Motion does have 3D now, and Livetype can still exists … but I still can’t generate a simple titles from within FCP, compose it over the current frame in the background and get an accurate representation of what that title will look like all while still actively in the title generation tool. It seems like such a simple request but ultimetely I guess it is not.

Better capture tool interactivity. While you are working in the capture tool you can see timecode and audio and make IN and OUT points. But as soon as you hit capture now or batch capture, you are then presented with a jerky reference right in the middle of the screen. It would be great to still see that timecode roll and those audio levels. And even better would be a way to subclip and add markers while capturing. (Shhhh…Avid can do that).

Fixed? Oh Heavens no! The log and capture tool really hasn’t changed much since very early versions. You still can’t even see timecode roll by as your footage is captured. Sure there’s a lot of footage generated to solid state media today but the majority is still to tape. The inability or unwillingness to improve the FCP Log and Capture is something I do not understand. I would love to be set loose in a padded room with the FCP developers and a wiffle ball bat over their lack of attention to the capture tool all of these years. And I have the wiffle ball bat.

Central user settings. When I move from my system to another machine I currently carry along a usb flash drive with keyboard settings, column layouts, track layouts, button bars, and even window layouts if I will be working on the same size monitor. If these could be centralized into a single user file that could easily be taken from system to system then that would be a huge timesaver.

Fixed? Nope. Still that same settings located in the same folders.

Make the trim tool work better! When FCP was first introduced they touted it as “mode free editing.”  This was a jab at Avid because in Avid you have to enter trim mode or segment mode to accomplish certain tasks. But this is not always a bad thing. When entering trim mode in Avid, the interface instantly changes and provides a number of new tools to work with. In FCP, an awkward window pops up. But the worst part about FCP’s trim mode is that it just does not work very well. It is cumbersome to use, it doesn’t give enough good feedback in the timeline and it often is hard to make it apply to the tracks you want it to trim. Even though I want to hear a specific audio track I probably still want to see my video! It is a shame as proper trimming can make fine tuning edits much quicker and easier. And because the trim tool doesn’t work very efficiently, it seems to me that most FCP editors don’t use it.

Fixed? Again with the no. Trim mode works exactly the same as it always has. Not very well.

Smarter zooming in the timeline. It would be nice to have the option to always zoom around the current time maker in the timeline. Often I have a clip selected somewhere way down the timeline but I want to zoom in to the current working area. As I start zooming I loose my current place as FCP zooms to the clips I have (usually) accidentally left selected. I know it seems like the logical thing to do but it is usually not. That is if I zoom via my keyboard or the dial on my Contour Shuttle Pro. Now if I grab the zoom slider at the bottom of the timeline is zooms to the current time marker. Go figure.

Fixed? Great Caesar’s Ghost yes! In the newest update to FCP they finally added the ability to Zoom In or Out on Playhead. You can find these new buttons located in the button list or the keyboard layout.

Backwards compatibility. Every FCP upgrade adds great new features but the ability to open a newer project in an older version of FCP would be welcome. I am an early adopter but a lot of my clients aren’t. XML is great but just the ability to be a bit backwards compatible would be nice. Sure all the new effects and features wouldn’t work but if you are aware of this then no problem. I mean… 5.1 couldn’t be opened in 5.0! That’s one way to increase your bottom line by forcing an upgrade.

Fixed? Not even. Probably never will be.

So there ya go. Through all the format mixing and ProRes422 additions and Color changes there is still some basic fundamental editing functionality that Apple really hasn’t addressed and changed since very early in FCP’s development. I guess “fixed” isn’t the right term to use as many of the things mentioned above are really things that are broken. I love all of the great updates that have been added throughout FCP’s life. They really make it a useable application and a viable alternative to Avid but if only they would address some of the little things it would make the day to day editing in the trenches that much easier.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Final Cut Pro. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.