you down with FCP? » shortcut

long filepath terminal trick

ross — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:34:15 +0000

I work at a pretty big company, and we have pretty big servers, and sometimes a producer will send me a filepath that is well over 10 directories deep. That’s just too far for me to look at the email and then hunt and peck my way deeper and deeper until I find it. Here are two ways to do that faster.

The simplest way is to copy it and hit shift-command-g in the finder. Paste your filepath in there and hit return. There are a few ways it can get messed up, including if it doesn’t have the proper /Volumes/… prefix or if it uses spaces or non-escaped characters in the name. But try it. It works sometimes.

The other way is to open up terminal and type ‘open ‘ and then paste in your filepath and hit return. That ought to open the directory in finder for you.

For both ways you need to make sure you have a directory not a file, and escape characters can cause trouble, but it can save a ton of time if successful.

For a bonus mini-trick: dragging any file into the terminal window will show you its filepath. Super useful if you are pointing someone else to it.

How to burn a Video_TS folder in dvd studio pro

ross — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:42:44 +0000

Occasionally I will find myself wanting to burn a dvd from a video_ts folder. That is seemingly an easy thing, but if you simply burn the folder onto a data dvd, then you end up with a disc that will sometimes play on a computer, but never on a standalone dvd player. That is the result of the disc formatting. A DVD needs to have UDF formatting, while a data dvd will end up with (probably) HFS+.

The easiest thing to do is to use toast or popcorn from roxio to burn them to disc. Either one will format the disc properly and let you get on with your business. The only problem is that I don’t have either of those on my editing station. It turns out you can do it via DVD Studio Pro! Here’s How.

Open up a new project and insert a blank dvd. Go to File>Advanced Burn>Format or hit Command-F.

Hit the source directory button and choose the folder that contains your Video_TS folder. I think it is important to have one directory that has nothing but your video_TS in it.

Hit burn. It will give you this popup, ignore it.

Your disc should begin burning. I haven’t tested this extensively, but I did it earlier today and tested it on a standalone dvd player. If you have any more insight onto what is happening with the file formatting, feel free to let me know!

Get faster in the finder – reveal the script menu

ross — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:06:45 +0000

Applescript is a powerful thing. It can do incredible things for those who know how to code, but it can be a bit daunting for those who don’t. There is one great way to be able to use some sample scripts without writing any code and it is built into the os by default!

If you go into applications>utilities you will find “Applescript Editor” Open it up and go into preferences.

Click on the “show script menu in menu bar” radio button and quit the app. Now you should have a little icon in you upper right menu bar that looks like a piece of parchment. That is a shortcut to open a bunch of applescripts. The os has a few installed by default. The most important ones (to me) are in the finder scripts folder. There you can add suffixes or prefixes to filenames, you can find and replace text, change case, or trim from the start or ending. This set of tools really helps when you need to batch change a bunch of .movs to .mp4, or when you want to add a job number or date to a bunch of deliverables.

There are definitely other standalone apps for renaming files out there. A better finder rename, name mangler, and automator all come to mind, but they aren’t as easy to use, or they don’t come pre-installed. Give it a shot,, you might not need it every day, but no one wants to have to manually do anything that can be automated.

It should also be noted that if you do write any applescripts, you can put them in the scripts folder and have them appear in the pulldown menu. Have fun automating!

UPDATE-I just saw that 10.6 (snow leopard) doesn’t install all of the scripts that previous versions did. Most importantly it doesn’t install the finder scripts. I’ve zipped the 10.5 scripts up and you can download them here.

Get Faster In Final Cut Pro – 13 – speed change ‘sss’

ross — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:20:02 +0000

This was one of the most talked-about features of fcp 7, but for some reason I didn’t start using it until recently. If you have a timeline with a gap in video and you would like to time scale (or speed change) a clip as it sits you have few options. What I had resorted to doing was cutting the clip, pasting it at the end of the timeline, speed remapping it, and then pasting it back into place. That is slow and irritating. If you try to remap it in place then frequently linked audio will force you to ripple the sequence. In short the old right-click, then “change speed” menu works better than it used to, but still not that well.

Enter the speed change tool. You can find it under the ‘roll’ icon in the tool bar, or you can shortcut to it by hitting ‘sss’ It is shown below as the fifth icon down.

Click on the end of a clip and drag it to your desired length. The tool will keep the in and out as marked, and time remap the clip to fit your new selection. If you select an edit between two clips it will adjust both clips accordingly. This is exactly how I would like the tool to work, and it is super convenient.

If you have excellent vision you can see that the clip “Nightlights01″ has been remapped to 66% Three s’s and a drag was all it took!

Get faster in Final Cut pro – 12 – ‘select file’ shortcut

ross — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:54:00 +0000

This is one of those tricks that I’ve never seen written anywhere, but it save me a TON of time. It works on 90% of the file import /save / open dialogs across all programs. If you want to export a file from say, FCP. You start out by hitting command-E and then you get the standard finder dialog window. You can navigate through this window to the directory you want…

OR you can select that folder in the finder and just drag it into the ~~import~~ “select folder” window. The box will update to the directory you just dragged in and you saved a lot of clicking. Enjoy!

The few apps I have found this to not work with are the apps that use non-standard dialogs, like color and nuke. I’m sure there are more, but this works in most apps.

Get faster in final cut pro -11 – Mouse analysis

ross — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:04:41 +0000

The more you use your mouse, the slower you work. Some tasks are impossible to do without a mouse, but maximizing keyboard shortcuts is the clear path to speed. Keyboard shortcuts, key remapping, and droplet creation are all designed to reduce the number of steps required to do something. The difficult thing is trying to get feedback on what we have been doing inefficiently. Watching others edit can be a great help, but it only shows you things that they do quickly, not things that you do slowly.

Enter io graphica It is a cool little piece of software that logs your mouse activity. When you move your mouse it will draw a thin black line. The longer your mouse sits in one position the line will turn into a dot and then a huge blob. Io graphica will run silently in the background while you edit. Turn it on and then crank out a few hours. Then take a peek. Provided you spent all (or most) of your time in final cut you can see a direct correlation between on screen actions and your window layout. If you want to you can take a screenshot and layer the two in photoshop to see how they line up. This info could be the final thing to help you move into 3 point editing, or it could help show you that you should really not use the pull down menu for copy and paste!

This will definitely take some introspection and careful analysis, but it is one clear way to work on the actual mechanics of editing. It will also work on many different apps, try it in illustrator, photoshop or after effects. Hopefully this will show you room for improvement, and possibly point you to some new shortcuts!

Enable “Bring all to front” in compressor

ross — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:01:35 +0000

This has been one of my biggest complaints about Compressor; when you switch to it from another app by clicking into one of the compressor windows, only that window rises to the top. The rest of the windows remain mixed in with the finder windows and other apps you have open below. My big hope for FCS 7 was that they would lock those windows together and have them snap to the top together. LIKE EVERY OTHER APP.

Well, Apple didn’t fix that. Thankfully the smartest man alive recently told me how to ease the pain by creating a shortcut for the unshortcut-able “Bring All to Front” in the compressor menu.

It turns out you can bind keyboard shortcuts to any menu items in in apple’s Keyboard system preference panel! Go to the apple>system prefs>keyboard and then click on the keyboard shortcuts tab.

Click on the plus sign under the main window. From the Application pulldown select Compressor. Now type the menu name in the Menu Title box EXACTLY AS IT IS SPELLED AND CAPITALIZED. Finally select a keyboard shortcut. I used command b. Hit add and then go to compressor and test.

This isn’t a ‘fix’ per se, but it is much easier than pulling down that menu item. This method can be used in any app that doesn’t have keyboard remapping like final cut does, so I’m sure there are plenty of great uses for it!

fcp swiss army apps

ross — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:21:40 +0000

Based on this post by Dylan Reeve I have put together a list of mac apps that I carry around on a usb drive in order to get myself and others out of sticky situations. There is a bit of overlap, but I think that this is a great start to making a final cut power tool. There’s nothing worse than sitting down at a machine and realizing you have nothing but a bare-bones install. Here you go MacGuyver, get yourself out of that sticky situation.

apps
perian – codecs for tons of odd formats all wrapped up into one package.
mpeg streamclip – great for batch encoding to prores, deinterlacing, or a lot of other useful procedures.
vlc – an alternate to quicktime when you find yourself dealing with a tricky file. VLC also correctly reads in pixel size more frequently than quicktime does.

helpers – not full apps, but still useful
compressor presets / droplets.
some applescripts like these
magic bullet looks

etc – not necessary, but will save you some googling
bookmarks to resources
after effects expressions

Oh yeah, one other thing. I don’t actually put this on a usb drive. I wash/lose/forget them far too frequently to keep one in my pocket. I put all of this up on my dropbox (free!) in a folder so I can access it anywhere the internet is.

UPDATE – 03.03.2010
Apps from Alex, linkified for your viewing pleasure

- BigTime (if the client has a pre FCP7 version)
- Flip4Mac (watching WMV files)
- Handbrake / MacTheRipper (for DVD ripping)
- Jes Deinterlacer
- NameMangler (for mass renaming – such a time-saver)
- ~~VisualHub (for speedy conversions and DVD burning)~~ seems to be discontinued.
- Senuti (Useful for ripping songs quickly off of my ipod)

Get faster in final cut pro – 7 – Normalize audio

ross — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:37:22 +0000

Normalize effect
This isn’t the primary use of normalize. The primary usage is to even out audio so that it has a more uniform volume. This usage is still very very useful.
The timeline only allows you to change audio levels up to +12dB. Sometimes you have a very low clip that needs more of an audio boost. Short of bringing the clip to protools or soundtrack there isn’t a good way to do it in FCP. Or so I thought.

The normalize effect allows up to +97db gain, but it takes a few steps… Here is where you can find the effect.

I usually set it to -2 (for no apparent reason)

Once you have applied it, open up the audio clip in the viewer window and click on the filters tab. Here you can go an impressive 96db up! Trust me: that is not a good idea. But if you need something higher than 12dB and lower than “way too freaking LOUD!” then this is very useful.

Now one weird quirk of the normalize filter is that it behaves strangely with keyframed audio. It is best to run it on a stock clip, then put your transitions and fades in.

These are the kinds of tips and tricks you usually learn by watching someone else edit. If you have something that drastically speed up your editing, let me know in the comments!

2 Applescripts for Final cut pro Editors

ross — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:35:03 +0000

Here are two scripts that I recently made. I use one script at work that is remarkably similar to this, so I wrote these two up to share.

FCPFolderMaker

is a simple app that builds a folder structure for you to organize your project with. The structure is as seen in the photo below. It generates folders named Projects, Assets, Cache, and Exports. The idea is that this type of directory structure will greatly ease finding assets and clean things up considerably.

FolderDateMaker

is an app that has many potential uses, but it only does one simple thing: it creates a folder named with today’s date. I use it in my export folder to keep apart every day’s exports.

Both scripts will need to be pasted into “Script Editor” and saved out as an app. From there I suggest you either drag them into the sidebar in your finder window, or (even better) the top bar. I used a cute animal and a monster icon for mine (that I got from this icon site), and you can clearly see them in the top bar of each finder window above. Then to call the script, just double click on them. They will do their respective business in the top most finder window. You should download both of them here because wordpress mangles the code below.

FCPFolderMaker

(* This script creates a folder structure suited for organizing a video editing job. It can be modified easily to create whatever folder structure you may desire. Ideally this script is saved as an app and run from either the script menu docklet or placed in the finder window. For more info go to http:/ blog.youDownWithFCP.com. Written by Ross 2010-01-20 *)


tell application "Finder"

	try

		set theLocation to the front window

		set assetsFolder to make new folder at theLocation with properties {name:"Assets"}
		set stillFolder to make new folder at assetsFolder with properties {name:"Still"}

		set incomingFolder to make new folder at stillFolder with properties {name:"Incoming"}

		set conformedFolder to make new folder at stillFolder with properties {name:"Conformed"}
		set videoFolder to make new folder at assetsFolder with properties {name:"Video"}

		set incomingFolder to make new folder at videoFolder with properties {name:"Incoming"}

		set conformedFolder to make new folder at videoFolder with properties {name:"Conformed"}
		set animationFolder to make new folder at assetsFolder with properties {name:"Animation"}

		set incomingFolder to make new folder at animationFolder with properties {name:"Incoming"}

		set conformedFolder to make new folder at animationFolder with properties {name:"Conformed"}
		set audioFolder to make new folder at assetsFolder with properties {name:"Audio"}

		set incomingFolder to make new folder at audioFolder with properties {name:"Incoming"}

		set conformedFolder to make new folder at audioFolder with properties {name:"Conformed"}
		set projectsFolder to make new folder at theLocation with properties {name:"Projects"}

		set editFolder to make new folder at projectsFolder with properties {name:"Edit"}

		set animationFolder to make new folder at projectsFolder with properties {name:"Animation"}

		set dvdFolder to make new folder at projectsFolder with properties {name:"DVD"}
		set exportFolder to make new folder at theLocation with properties {name:"Export"}

		set finalFolder to make new folder at exportFolder with properties {name:"Final"}

		set briefsFolder to make new folder at theLocation with properties {name:"Briefs"}
		set cacheFolder to make new folder at theLocation with properties {name:"Cache"}

on error beep 1 end try end tell

FolderDateMaker

(* This script creates a folder based on todays date. It creates the folder Year-Month-Day so the date is finder-sortable. Ideally this script is saved as an app and run from either the script menu docklet or placed in the finder window. For more info go to http:/ blog.youDownWithFCP.com. Written by Ross 2010-01-20 *)

tell application "Finder" try tell (current date) to tell (year * 10000 + (its month) * 100 + day) as string to set MyDate to text 1 thru 4 & "-" & text 5 thru 6 & "-" & text 7 thru 8 make new folder at the front window with properties {name:MyDate} on error beep 1 end try end tell

If you end up using these, or if you find a better way to go about this let me know in the comments! I'm also always on the prowl for more final cut related workflows and scripts. Let me know!