By Brendan Boykin

As iTunes came after FCP, there has not been a reliable way to drag music from the iTunes window directly into the Browser of Final Cut Pro. However, there is a way to use an Automator Service to use the iLife Media Browser for sampling then importing into a FCP project.

Automator is Apple’s “macro” feature. It can be used to simplify repetitive or complex tasks into a few keystrokes or even a “hands-off” automation. Here I want to look at an Automator function that creates a Service. Services are accessible to most Applications. You can find Services under the application’s menu of the menu bar.

Apple and others have created some slick Automator functions that you can add to your Services menu:

1. Go here and download the MEDIA PICKER SERVICES zip file and run the associated installer.

2. After the installer runs, launch FCP and choose Final Cut Pro > Services from the menu bar.

3. Choose Browse iTunes Library.

The Media Browser appears allowing you to preview your iTunes Library.

4. Select the desired song, drag to your Project in the Browser.

You can drag multiple songs or even a Playlist (not Smart Playlists) into your project. You may wish to create a FCP Bin in which to drag these multiple songs or Playlist beforehand.

Thanks to Chris Breen at MacWorld for the Five awesome Automator tips article that pointed me in this direction.

NOTES:

As Final Cut Pro only loves AIFF and WAV files, you should only be importing audio files of those type. MP3 files are importable, but require rendering/transcoding to be loved by a sequence. AAC files will not import into FCP via this method.

And A TIP:

The Services you installed also allow you to browse your photos and movies!

About Brendan Boykin:

Brendan is one of Weynand Training's lead instructors. He is the owner of Creek Mountain Media, and has been providing Apple Certified training since 2003 with current certifications in Final Cut Studio 3. For more information visit his website. He is also the author of the Apple Pro Training Series book, Final Cut Pro 7 A Qucik Reference Guide. For more information on the guide click here

Like Avid, Final Cut Pro gives you certain controls over your Timeline tracks. However, there are some minor differences. For example, Avid lets you assign different colors to each track, whereas FCP lets you assign a color to a clip as discussed in a previous article. You enter timecode numbers and durations in FCP using the same protocol as Avid. Instead of pressing F at the end of a number entry for frames, however, you right-click in the Timeline location field or ruler area to change the display to frames or feet and frames. In FCP, as in Media Composer, controls to lock tracks, patch tracks, turn tracks off or on so they won’t be seen or heard, and change track height all appear in the Timeline track area, in the left side of the Timeline.

To control Timeline tracks:

Most of the Timeline track controls toggle a function off or on, just as they do in Avid.

Do one of the following:

•      To lock a track, click the Lock Track control for that track.

•      To turn the sound of an entire track off or on, toggle the Audible control for that track.

•      To turn video of a track off or on, toggle the Visible control for that track.

NOTE When a Timeline track is not currently audible or visible, it appears dark.

•      To change track height, click the Track Height control in the Timeline. You can also press Shift-T to toggle the options. (Chapter 3  in "Final Cut Pro for Avid Editors" covers more ways to change Timeline tracks dynamically.)

•      To go to a timecode location, click and type the timecode in the Timecode Location field, in the upper left of the Timeline beneath the sequence name tab. If nothing is selected in the Timeline, simply typing a timecode number enters it into this field automatically.

This may seem very simple, but nevertheless, sometimes the simplest thing throws us off.

When media such as graphics, music, text already exists on your computer, you can simply use the import command to ingest them into your project.  Importing files does not make copies of the files.  It only creates reference files within your project file.

Note:  Remember you can only import from local drives.  If you have files on servers you must copy them first to your local drive.

Final Cut Pro supports a whole list of files both audio, video and still photographs. The manual lists them all which you can find under the Help menu in Final Cut Pro.

The first step is to know where the file lives on your computer, then select Choose File> Import>Files (or Folders).

If you have multiple files, you can hold down the shift key while clicking on the files to select more than just one file.  You obviously can drag from the desk top too via the Finder window.

You can also import Audio - if it's from a CD, just drag the track to your desktop or firewire drive plugged into your computer.  For music tracks you can obviously import from iTunes. But you will need to set iTunes to send AIFF versions of your music library to Final Cut.  You can set that up in the iTunes Prefernce window under Import Settings.

October 12-14, 2010

We are very happy to be holding a 3-day hands-on Final Cut Pro 7 class in Philadelphia at the same time as the First Glance Film Festival

FirstGlance™ has been producing film festivals since 1996 and since FirstGlance™ Films is run by indie filmmakers, they know what filmmakers are looking for…resources for getting their projects completed and visibility for their projects!

FirstGlance works with sponsors, partners and other professionals in the industry to get each filmmaker the attention they deserve.
Their goal is to get everyone seen, whether it be at the festivals, on cable, on a DVD in your own home, downloaded full screen
right to your computer, in a national theater chain, on an iPod, broadcast on airlines, or to watch on your cell phone.

For First Glance Film Festival schedule more information, visit them now.

If you are attending the First Glance Film Festival and want to participate in this class you get an extra $100.00 discount. So don't delay sign up today.

So don't miss out on this opportunity to get certified while you watch some amazing indie films.

If you're travelling to Philadelphia and need lodging, the Festival has a great arrangement with the Marriott Hotels offering almost $100.00 off their rooms per night.

COURSE DATES:

OCTOBER 12-14, 2010
TUESDAY-THURSDAY (9AM-5PM)

Location:

Lincoln High School
3201 Ryan Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19136

If you are an educator or student, the cost of the class is $700.00 (that includes a copy of the Apple Pro Training Series Final Cut Pro 7 book - a $50 value).

So whether you use Final Cut Pro at home, in school or to make great indie films with, come take this class and start using Final Cut like a Pro!

Enroll Now!

As new technologies develop so do the possibilities for recording and capturing media.  We now have options to create digital files as we shoot.  Instead of capturing the footage, you need only transfer, or ingest, the digital files into your project and begin editing immediately.

You can even edit in the foreground while you ingest in the background.

In Final Cut set either the project or a bin as the logging bin.  Then choose File>Log and Transfer, or press Command-Shift 8.  The Log and Transfer window opens.

If you don’t have a card with footage to transfer, but do have digital video files on your computer, you can point FCP7 to their location.

In the Browse area:  click the Add Volume button and navigate to where your footage is located.

If no image is present in the Preview area, click the first clip in the list, then click the Play button under the image to play.  You can scrub using the scrubber bar just as you would in the Viewer window.

Mark In and Out points to identify the portions of the clip that you want to transfer.  You

To ingest the clip into your project, click the Add Clip to Queue button beneath the transport button.

The clip will appear in the Transfer Queue, the gear icon will spin while the clip is transferred and there will be a progress bar indicating the amount of transfer.  When the transfer is complete the clip is removed from the list.

Remember you can transfer all your clips at one time by selecting them or, Command-A and dragging them as a group to the Transfer Queue.

When transferring is complete, close the Log and Transfer window, and go back to the Browser window.

In the Tapeless ingest, Apple will use Apple ProRes, which is a variable bit rate, high quality codec that has lower processing requirements.

by Shannon L. Hartmann

There are times, when editing sequences, that they become elaborate in scale with multiple tracks of Video and Audio. You may have wished you could treat them as if they were one big clip. For example, wouldn't it be nice if we could apply a color correction filter to the entire edit before sending the sequence to compressor for final output. Final Cut Pro will allow us to do just that by a process called Nesting.

A Completed Sequence

The Same Sequence Nested

Final Cut allows us to treat our sequences just as we would a clip. You have the ability to load a sequence into the viewer and set IN and OUT points and edit it into an active timeline. When we edit a sequence into another it is referred to as “Nesting” a sequence. Let’s see how we accomplish this....

With the Timeline window active, select the entire sequence of clips. (Cmd + A)

Go to the Sequence menu in the tool bar and select “Nest Item(s)...” (Keyboard shortcut - Option + C)

The Nest Items dialog box appears. Here is our opportunity to name the nest and give it a different aspect ratio should you choose.

You will also notice that there is a check box for mixing down your audio. If you check this box you will be replacing the multiple tracks of audio with a new stereo pair that will be placed in the A1 and A2 tracks. For now i’ll leave it unchecked. “CLICK OK”

In the timeline you will see a purplish blue clip with the sequence name you appointed in the Nest Items Dialog. However there is one catch ... you will need to render the Audio.

Now you will be able to treat this sequence as if it were a clip. You can apply filters and effects to the entire sequence!

It's pretty easy, so start experimenting now.

HOME

Getting your footage into Final Cut Pro - The Three Ways: Capture, Transfer and Import.  

First of three parts.

Capture

There are three ways to capture footage into Final Cut -   Now, Clip and Batch. 

Now is the down and dirty way.  What you are doing is basically telling Final Cut Pro to ingest whatever audio or video footage is on either a tape, a FireWire drive or some other device that is supported.  You can use the transport controls in the Log and Capture window to control the viewing of your footage by simply selecting Now.  Always remember, your footage is going to be captured in Final Cut in whatever resolution you have set up in Easy Setup.  The keyboard shortcut Shift-C will start the immediate capture of your FireWire or capture card's audio/video streams.

Shortcut to open the Log and Capture window is Command-8

Capture Clip.

This in some ways can be the most painstaking way of ingesting because you are basically marking INs and OUT points on your footage to ingest precisely what footage you want to edit with one clip at a time. You are basically marking the clip, capturing the clip, marking  the clip, capturing the clip and so on. Again you can use the Transport Controls or the keyboard shortcuts (J - Rewrind, K - Pause and L - Play).

Everything you capture gets put onto the scratch disk, and then added to the logging bin in your project.  Every so often, you might want to save, (Command-S) to upade the project file as you go.  A note on capturing one clip at a time.

Remember to include enough footage on either end of your clip - handles - so that you have enough video or audio material to fine tune your edit points.

Batch Capture

Batch capture can sometimes be the best route for ingesting.  It's basically the same as Clip capture, only instead of actually capturing the clip you simply log the clip.  You mark an In and Out point as you have done before and then simply select the Log Clip button in the Capture window.  This logs the clip for later ingest.  So you can log as many clips as you want and then at the end of a logging session, just ingest or Batch Capture the clips all at one time.  After you've finished logging, select the offline cips in the project you wish to batch capture and select Batch.   Shortcut for Batch Capure is Control-C - this will initiate the capture of multiple clips you've already logged in the Browser.

Tomorrow -- Log and Transfer.

The Razor Blade tool allows you to split a clip into two or more pieces.  You would probably use the Razor Blade tools to get rid of undesired parts of any particular clip (s).  The key difference is that the Razor Blade All tool (shortcut is bb) selects an edit point in all unlocked tracks at the playhead location, whereas Razor Blade tool just creates an edit point in linked tracks of a single clip (shortcut is b).

First of all adjust a filter's parameters to the way you want them in the Viewer.  Then drag the filter to the Favorite's bin in the Brower's Effects tab. The keyboard shortcut is Option-F.  This will automatically add an effect to the Favorites bin in the Broswer and the Transition and Filter Favorties in the Effects menu.

The answer is no.  It will only effect the nested sequence.   And for those of you who aren't familiar with nesting.  Nesting lets you group a series of clips together into a single container within a sequence.   Nests can be created with clips already edited in a sequence or by dragging a sequence inside another one.  More on nesting in our newsletter next week.