Lynda.com - What have i learnt?

In a previous post i mentioned that i planned to watch as many of the online tutorials on lynda.com and focusing on the tutorials within the section called "Final Cut Pro X Essential Training". Since this last post i have watched a variety of these videos and i have been able to take a lot from them. This is a short summary of what i have learnt : -

Preparing Your Machine and Program 

• There are numerous ways in which to create a New Event 
• Organisation and awareness from the beginning is the key to good media management - click on the actual drive in which you want to create the New Event in 
• Importing Footage - make sure that the destination event and drive event is the same  
• Have constant awareness of all of your media decisions in order to be organised 
• Make sure that you pay attention to all of the decisions that you make when creating the settings for the New Event as these will effect the entirety of the edit. Make sure that you get it right from the start and pay attention to all of the settings. 

Importing, Capturing and Analysing Media 

• Key word collections are the main way that you can label your shots in Final Cut Pro X. They are more like tags than folders, shots can exist in multiple locations which helps for faster and more efficient editing.You can also make short cut keys that are linked to each key word and/or keyword collections. If a clip is part of a key word collection then there will be a blue line that appears at the top of the clip. 
• You can categorise your files through the use of ratings where you can attach both psoitive and negative rating. You can do this is two ways, one by selecting the clip and clicking the green star or by using a key short cut and pressing "f". A green line will then appear on top of the clip to show that it has a favourite attached to it.
• You can also favourite just a small section of a clip by creating an "in" and "out" selection on the clip and then clicking the green star or pressing "f" to make it a favourite. 
• You can also give a clip a negative rating to a clip by doing exactly the same thing as a positive clip, with the only difference being that you click the red "X" in order to give it a negative rating. 
• From doing this you can also hide the rejected clips or just view your favourite clips by clicking the clip button and then selecting either of these options. 
• Analysing the media properly before starting the edit is key. You have to analyse and organise your files in order to edit efficiently. 

Selecting key word selections and rating represented through the green and blue lines

How to hide the rejected clips and to view your favourite clips 

Working with Sound 

• Normal sounds like the human voice should peak at between -12 and -6 
• Nothing should peak above zero or else it will be distorted 
• To focus on the sound of one clip you need to select the clip and then solo it by clicking the solo button or pressing opt + s. This will make the clip in colour and the rest of the clips black and white to show that the clip is now solo. Then go onto the audio tab on the right hand viewer box to adjust the audio. 
• The best way in which to edit the sound is to play the clip as a loop and then adjust the volume as it loops so that you can be sure that the sound is correct and is how you would like it to sound. 
• Once you have the main audio corrected you should then look at the remaining audio and make sure this also fits in with the main audio. The music should not interfere but you should still be able to hear it and if there is background audio it should not drown out the main audio such as interviews. The music should be dipped down when there is dialogue or prominent sounds. 

The solo button ------>           <------Opening the Audio Meters

               

Effects, Transitions and Generators 

• Transitions are placed in between clips 
• Dissolve - click on the edit point in between two clips and press cmd + t, click on the grey transition box and press ctrl + d to show the duration of the transition. To then change this duration go to the preferences menu and then under editing, transition you can then make the transition either shorter or longer. Or alternatively you can hover over the transition until two yellow handles appear and you can drag these either outward or inward to change the transition time. 
• Click on the transition browser to open it and this will give you a range of transitions to choose from with the categories being on the left hand side and then the transitions within these being on the right. 
• Don't over use the transitions or use a variety of different and flamboyant transitions, stick to ones that are similar and that actual fit in with what you are doing and trying to achieve. 

Button to open transition box 

 

Transition Box 

Grey Transition Box