Help from FCP/MC editors

[patent10021]

Question I have for you re video editing simple movie trailers. If I want to actually re-create the same trailer or my own version for that matter is FCP the best for those type of quick edits or MC?

I need to be able to view the original 1080p movie trailer on the top time line and put the original 1080p movie on the line below it.

Then I want to place markers on the original movie where I'd like the cuts and have the ability to automatically place the marked regions (all at once after marking them) on the time line below that.

That way I can see my cuts, place them in the order I want, add transitions and visually compare with the trailer above.

How would I do this and which of the two would you recommend? Would iMovie even do it or would it be frustrating?

 

[handsome pete]

Both would work just fine for that. Any NLE will work.

Can't say for certain regarding iMovie, but I don't think it offers markers or something similar.

 

[patent10021]

Both would work just fine for that. Any NLE will work.

Can't say for certain regarding iMovie, but I don't think it offers markers or something similar.

Awesome thanks. I'll be watching Lynda.com toots to find out how on both but would you mind telling me what function it's called? Setup is this:

Timeline1: Reference trailer
Timeline2: Original movie for source clips
Timeline3: Final cuts ready for transitions

What is the function called in the menu that would let me do what I want? I set markers through the entire 2 hour movie but then what function is it called that will make cuts at all the markers AND copy them automatically to the 3rd timeline? Is there something like "cut at markers and copy to timeline" in FCP?


Found this.

Move or copy a marker
You can move or copy markers with the familiar Mac commands Cut, Copy, and Paste.

Control-click the marker you want to move or copy, and choose an option from the shortcut menu.

To move the marker: Choose Cut Marker.

To copy the marker: Choose Copy Marker.

Position the skimmer or the playhead where you want to move or copy the marker.

Choose Edit > Paste (or press Command-V).

But I don't want to place where the playhead is I want to just dump all to the bottom timeline.


.

 

[puckhead193]

are you using FCP 7 or X.

There is no function that will automatically cut the video for you... you have to do that yourself. It's why they pay me ok money

Think of the markers as post-it notes. It's a note telling you you have to do something at the point. I work in sports broadcasting so when I review a game i set marker to where a big play happened. (A sack, big run/throw, TD, etc if i'm doing a football game.) noting that something here happened and it was important. you can also type notes so when you click it, you can see what happened.

You have to manually set in and out points in the video. Once you can do that, you can use a keyboard shortcut to automatically bring it to the timeline where the playhead is

 

[patent10021]

are you using FCP 7 or X.

There is no function that will automatically cut the video for you... you have to do that yourself. It's why they pay me ok money

Think of the markers as post-it notes. It's a note telling you you have to do something at the point. I work in sports broadcasting so when I review a game i set marker to where a big play happened. (A sack, big run/throw, TD, etc if i'm doing a football game.) noting that something here happened and it was important. you can also type notes so when you click it, you can see what happened.

You have to manually set in and out points in the video. Once you can do that, you can use a keyboard shortcut to automatically bring it to the timeline where the playhead is

OMG. LOL Thanks but you're stating the obvious. Did you honestly think that I thought there was some magic function that selected all the markers for me?

What I meant was AFTER I have created all the markers in the 2 hr movie, I want an auto-cut function that cuts all my say 200 markers all at once and batch export/copies them onto the time line below. This should be a feature that all NLEs have or at least some 3rd party plugin has. No?

btw, FCPX

 

[OneAnswer]

But how should the NLE know, how much footage around the marker it should paste into the timeline?
Or how should the NLE know, which marker is an IN and which marker is an OUT point?

What you could do is create sub-clips of the parts you want to use and store them in an extra bin for you to select and paste into the timeline directly, or you paste the footage between IN and OUT directly into a timeline, going marker by marker.
The first option could be automated via QuickKeys (demo works well, I used it recently to make hundreds of sub-clips of a multicam TV show to group them):

Load the movie with the markers in the timeline or preview window then use the keyboard shortcut for going to the next marker (I do not use FCP X, but it is probably programmable), then use the frame forwards/backwards controls to go to an in point, make the IN point, then use those same controls to go to an out point, make an OUT point, make a sub-clip, select the timeline/video preview monitor.
Since this can all be done via keyboard shortcuts, you can create a makro for that and it repeats as often as you like.

Let's say, the marker is in the middle of the clip you want to select, then going back one or two seconds for the IN point should suffice for a trailer, and then going two or four seconds forward from that IN point to a possible OUT point should also suffice.
Maybe FCP X has an option/keyboard shortcut to jump 10 frames instead of one, thus it cuts down on keys being pressed.

Or you do it manually, but creating 200 sub-clips can be time consuming, but fiddling around in QuickKeys can be too, though creating 50 sub-clips from a synchronised timeline in 5 minutes via QuickKeys is faster than doing it by hand in an hour or three.

 

[Unami]

this can be done in FCPX using keywords as "markers". mark the clip-range you want to put into the timeline later (using the I and O key). give it a keyword (cmd-k). now proceed with the next range and assign the same keyword to it. after you've marked all your clips, select the keyword in the library, select all clips and drag them onto the timeline.

you could also just put the clip into the timeline (e.g. using the E key) just after you've selected it with I and O. this will save you the process of assigning a keyword. an orange line in your source movie will indicate the part that's used in the timeline.

 

[handsome pete]

Yeah, looks like I misunderstood what you intended to do with the markers. As others mentioned, it doesn't exactly work that way. You would need specific in and out points for each edit. A marker would only give you one specific time. So just mark in/out points and make these sub-clips. Then lay all of the sub-clips into a new timeline. Sounds like the FCPX equivalent is using keywords as Unami pointed out. It's pretty much the same process.

As far as I'm aware, none of the NLEs will throw these clips in a timeline for you automatically, however someone may have written a script for such an action. But really, it's not much more effort to just drag them all in yourself once you've clipped them.