To work with media in these recipes, you will need some sample clips. You can download free sample files with watermarks from any of the major stock media websites, or you can use the footage from your camera’s SD card.

You should treat your SD cards as precious jewels. If you are videoing a wedding and lose or damage the SD card, imagine trying to get the entire wedding party back together and ask them to look surprised as you recreate the wedding ceremony. That would probably not work, so keep those SD cards safe until you can make a backup on an external hard drive.

In this recipe, we will see how to save precious footage with a camera archive – a disk copy of an SD card on your hard drive.

Getting ready

To follow along, you need to have an SD card with footage recorded from a video camera.

How to do it…

That container of pasta at the back of your refrigerator won’t keep for long, but a camera archive will. Let’s make one:

1. With Final Cut Pro open, insert an SD card from your camera.
2. Once inserted, the Media Import window should come up automatically. On the left, you should see your SD card show up in the...

Just like gathering the freshest ingredients before a great meal, importing media is the first (and most important) step in crafting your edit. Final Cut Pro makes this process seamless with features such as automatic file organization, keyword tagging, and footage transcoding. These tools ensure your footage is prepped and ready to go, letting you focus on creative storytelling instead of digging through the pantry.

In this recipe, we’ll explore the essential steps for importing media into Final Cut Pro, ensuring your footage is organized and ready for editing.

How to do it…

To import media into Final Cut Pro, follow these steps:

1. First, open the Media Import window. There are multiple ways to do this:
   • Click on the Media Import icon, which looks like an arrow pointing down and is located in the upper-left corner of the interface. From the drop-down menu, select Media....

   

   Figure...

Importing media quickly into an event can be done by dragging media from a Finder window into the Final Cut Pro interface. Like an omelet, it seems simple, but there is some prep work that needs to happen first using the Final Cut Pro preferences.

In this recipe, we’ll explore the preparation and importing process so you can quickly drag files into Final Cut Pro.

Getting ready

Make sure you have some files on your hard drive ready to import.

How to do it…

Sometimes, you just want to hurry up and get the files into Final Cut Pro with the settings that you normally use. Here is a no-fuss, no-mess way to do it:

1. The preparation work we need to do is to set up our import preferences. From the Final Cut Pro menu, select Settings…. Alternatively, use the Command +, (comma) keyboard shortcut.

Figure 2.24: Select Settings... from the Final Cut Pro menu

2. From the Settings menu, click...

When transcoding (i.e., changing the code or format of media) in Final Cut Pro, there are two main options:

• The codec of optimized media will be the Apple ProRes 422 format, which is native to Final Cut Pro.
• The other option, proxy media, will have a smaller file size. You can choose a codec, or format, of ProRes Proxy or H.264.

In this recipe, we will explore the procedure of how to set these processes and what their purposes are.

How to do it…

Let’s dig deeper into the process of transcoding media:

1. Start by importing some media into Final Cut Pro. The original format of the media will be saved into the library or folder of your choosing, but you have two options when transcoding (or creating alternate versions of media) when importing: optimized or proxy.

Figure 2.28: The Transcode options when importing media

Let’s look at the two options:

• The...

Tagging clips with keywords is like custom labeling your spice jars – it helps you find exactly what you need when the heat is on. With Final Cut Pro’s powerful keyword tools, you can quickly organize, search, and group related clips. Organizing your footage is not limited to dealing with the file type or alphabetical names of your clips. Final Cut Pro uses a database and a modern method of tagging footage with different characteristics. This is known as metadata.

Meta means referencing itself, so metadata is data about data. In Final Cut Pro, metadata usually comes from three sources:

• From the camera, such as the date, the type of format, and the timecode on the clip
• Automatically from Final Cut Pro when media is imported, such as keywords entered from folder names
• Entered by the user, such as favorite or rejected ratings, as well as keywords

In this recipe, we will focus on ways to add custom keywords to your clips...

Think of the Event Browser List view as your well-organized recipe binder, laying out every ingredient (or clip) with clear, sortable details. Switching to List view lets you see essential metadata such as duration, scene, and custom keywords at a glance. This bird’s-eye view makes it easier to sift, sort, and serve up the right clips quickly, keeping your workflow efficient and your edit on track.

In this recipe, we will explore the hidden advantages behind the List (or Column) view of the Event Browser panel. The power of organizing and sorting your media with detailed metadata will streamline your search process, making it easier to find and select the right footage for your project.

Getting ready

You might consider changing your workspace so that the Event Browser panel is larger. Go to the Window menu and select Workspaces, followed by Organize (or use the Control + Shift + 1 keyboard shortcut).

Also, if you followed...

Sometimes, when making a project, especially a short film, directors want to review all the footage from a particular day or a series of days. Looking at the footage on a daily basis is called dailies.

When a director sits down with the editor and wants to see all the footage shot in order, that’s sometimes called an assembly edit. The assembly edit is like prepping every ingredient (even the ones you might not use) because you never know which flavor might surprise you. You might think that you need to put all the clips into a timeline for the director to see the footage assembled. But Final Cut Pro has a quick technique to play all the footage right from the Event Browser panel.

In this recipe, we will find the quick setting that will save the day.

Getting ready

If you have previously altered the Event Browser’s filtering options, click on the Clip Filtering menu at the top of the Event Browser panel and select All Clips.

Creating Smart Collections is like sorting your ingredients based on a variety of flavor combinations. Collections automatically gather clips based on criteria you define, such as keywords, roles, or media type. It’s a fast, efficient way to keep your media organized and accessible throughout the entire editing process. Perhaps you would like to organize interview clips by date or categorize B-roll by keyword. This is the right place.

In this recipe, we’ll explore how to set up collections that group clips based on specific criteria, such as keywords, ratings, and more, streamlining your workflow and keeping you organized.

Getting ready

If you have previously altered the Event Browser’s filtering options, click on the Clip Filtering menu at the top of the Event Browser panel and select All Clips.

How to do it…

To create a Smart Collection, follow these steps:

1. In the Event Browser, click on the...

Let’s say you have been marinating and prepping ingredients for days, but when you open the refrigerator, it’s empty! Or, you open an editing project that you have not worked on in a while, and all your clips are red, saying Missing File!

Well, don’t panic. It could be that the files are not lost but just moved. In this recipe, we will help direct Final Cut Pro to find them and put everything right.

Getting ready

For this, you will need to create a new library and import some media from a hard drive into it, using the Leave files in place import setting. Then, quit Final Cut Pro, move the file to another hard drive, delete the original files, and relaunch Final Cut Pro.

How to do it…

As mentioned, if your files appear to be disconnected, they’ll appear in red, with a warning message that says Missing File, but have no fear. Your project may look like this:

Figure 2.60: The Final Cut Pro interface displaying...