Keyword Collections don't show up in search

Hey all.

I'm working with one of my regular clients at the start of a big project, and I'm pitching them on FCPX for it's great metadata search functions, which will make logging and later finding material from the large volume of footage much faster and easier.

I went around for my first consultation with their in-house editor to make my case for FCPX in stead of 7. We started keynaming clips, ranges, people, places. Based on the size of the project (many days of shooting, lots of video deliverables). So then I started typing in strings in the window, and nothing came up.

This was incredibly perplexing until I realized that keywords don't show up in a text search. I hadn't needed to do this in the relatively small projects I'd been doing in X since my soft-switch in February. A bit of on the spot research showed you can only sort keywords by adding a new field in the search window and check-marking the keywords you want included. This might be fine in a project with a couple dozen keywords, but I'm anticipating HUNDREDS.

This seemingly the case, I'm trying to come up with a plan to re-examine what the best practice is for organizing a large job for easy organization and search. There's clip names, favourites, notes... all searchable via text, then keywords...

First, WHY aren't keywords searchable? Second, has there been any articles on best practices for large jobs that anyone can point to, or personal experience they're willing to share?

Thanks...

Think of keywords as bins. How would search through hundreds of bins in FCP7 to find a bin? You can in FCPX, even if they're in folders. Cmd-F. Uncheck all. Click on the collection or collections.

Indeed. I'd made that connection. I guess my thinking is that if you have a hundred keywords, it would be a lot easier to just type in search words for the keyword collections, rather than having to scan thru them and checkmark them.

I guess the change in mindset for me is that I'd been leaning on keyword collections too heavily, as a organization method for nearly ALL search criteria.

Whereas they should be more likely applied for broader criteria that will satisfy a large number of clips generally. Then use either clip names, notes, and/or custom named favourites for more specific criteria.

I won't be doing the logging myself, so the challenge is coming up with a methodology that I can impart to someone that I won't have to spend time decoding later...

Disproportionate Pictures wrote: ...if you have a hundred keywords, it would be a lot easier to just type in search words for the keyword collections, rather than having to scan thru them and checkmark them.

You can. Click the magnifying glass in the left of the search field for the Event Browser (with the Event itself highlighted in the Event Library). Turn off the default text criteria. Click the plus icon for the criteria menu, choose Keyword. Poof, you get a list of all your keywords used. Check and uncheck what you need or don't need. You can create a Smart Collection that wrangles in several keyword collections at once. Very handy.

But I'd rethink how I used keywords if I would end up with "hundreds". And if you must have that many, use this Smart Collection for keywords technique, and folders to keep them organized.

Pre-planning a large project's media management is very important. Before X, I would get so frustrated with my students and consulting clients coming to me with problems stemming from no real media management ever done to a large project. Just helter skelter as they went along. Now, you're almost forced to do it, and I'm glad. I don't think most folks understood how much time and headaches it can save in the long run.

But yes, go into the search criteria window, look all of the options over, learn it well. That by itself is very flexible and can save you some time.

Now, if we could do a text search for Custom Metadata Fields we create ourselves, then that feature would be practical finally.

Hey Ben. What I'm saying is that I think having to manually checkmark multiple keyword collections is much more inefficient than if keywords were searchable as text.

Then you could type the keyword "Jackie" the the subject "clowns" and in 2 seconds have a short concise list of clips where Jackie talks about clowns, regardless of how many keyword collections you might have. It's a very quick way to drill down. Whereas the checkboxes involves unchecking everything, then finding the keyword strings you want to limit your search to. Again, if you have hundreds of of keywords (which you could have if you'd been shooting on a big multi-part project for months) it's very odd.

Keywords are the easiest and most repeatable metadata to add, and that it's not searchable seems weird to me. You can name and text search favourites, notes, and clip names. But you can't easily duplicate that information across multiple clips.

I'm just spiting out ideas here, may not be of any help. But...

There is an "uncheck all", and a "check all" menu in the keyword smart search criteria. So that is super fast, no need to manually do them one at a time.

I'd prefer to do most of my plain text searches not including keywords. But, perhaps an easier way to filter out non-keywords in a plain text search would help? That could be nice.

I still question "hundreds" of keywords. Seems I'd use more Smart Collections and folders to help group things. But not knowing the extent or complexity of the production, I'm not sure what your media management looks like. I can only guess.

From your example, I think you should use the Notes field in the Browser to type in dialog subjects and such so you can more easily search for that.

And in the Library you have all of the keyword collections simply listed there. Group them down into folders. Not sure if that would help in your unique situation.

But, if you do have a project that demands so many keyword collections, use the feedback page to let Apple know the details. They do read and catalog those requests. They may just figure out a new search scheme to help out. Let them know!

It's just seem counterintuitive that you can't search keywords.

I could see hundreds if you include generic things like

INVU, B-ROLL, PORTRAIT

specific place and people names (sometimes to whole clips, sometimes to ranges)

topics of interviews where you may be interviewing many people about the same general subjects

and specific range notes like "skid" or "horse" or "gun"


Again, since keywords are so powerful because you can add them to ranges, single, or multiple clips, they're almost the defacto search criteria.

Any search term that you might want to use on multiple clips, you wouldn't want to manually enter in the notes field, since there no easy way to copy that info from clip to clip. It would seem that NOTES and FAVOURITES are both for the same "one-off" type of information.

I would not say Notes are a one off type of information. I use it for dialog and such.

You can also rename Favorites, which is searched for in a plain text search.

Just offering options.

Absolutely- thanks.

Dialoge is specific to a single clip, so I'd consider that one-off info.

Favorites are another great search tool.

Honestly, for the first 20 minutes I thought there was something seriously wrong not being able to text-search keyword names. It's terribly counter intuitive.

I've already sent feedback to Apple on it, though unless it's something they've planned on already, I'm likely too late for 10.0.6!