5 Editing Tips Every Final Cut Pro X

Editor Should Know

Live Trimming

During an edit, one of the most common tasks is to make a clip shorter. Editing wisdom tells us that a clip should be

able to justify every frame of its length; if it’s not necessary, it’s cut. FCP X has three keys which are great at doing just

that, whether you’re paused or playing a timeline. With nothing selected, the clip under the playhead will be

affected, but you can select a clip to trim that instead.

● Option-[ to start the clip at the current playhead position (Trim Start)

● Option-] to end the clip at the current playhead position (Trim End)

● Option-\ trims to the start or end, whichever is closer to the current playhead position (Trim to Playhead)

Adjustment Layers

You can make your own with Motion, or pick up one from many places online, but Adjustment Layers are invaluable. They aren’t included in the default installation, but they are

ridiculously helpful. And what are they? They’re empty titles, with no included text. Any color changes or effects applied to adjustment layers affect every clip below them.

Keyword and Favorite FirstWhen you first start to work through your footage, it’s quite

tempting to dump it all on a timeline and start culling. There’s often a better way, though. Press Command-K to bring up the Keywords popup, then pre-define keywords which suit your

footage in each of the boxes, assigned shortcuts of Control-1 through Control-9.

With the shortcuts ready to go, make sure no clips in your event are selected, then just hover over each in turn, and

press the matching Control-# shortcut key. It’s insanely fast to organize your footage. When that’s done, click-drag-release

or use I and O to mark in and out points, and press F to make a Favorite.

View Favorites from the drop-down at the top, and you’ve got the best bits of all your clips sorted and organised, viewable

with the keyword collections to the left.

Export FasterThough it’s downplayed by the language used, there’s very little wrong (and a lot right) with using the Faster Encode

options in FCP X. Sure, the other option says “Better Quality” but it’s often hard to tell the difference visually.

Reveal Hidden Features with Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

Changing often-used keyboard shortcuts is a great way to make common actions faster. For example, some people have recommended using G and H for the most common

Trim Start and Trim End commands above.But some other commands are completely inaccessible if you

don’t assign keys to them — they’re not in the menus and they don’t have shortcuts by default.

Source: http://sjainventures.com/