Editing a feature length independent film soon, I have some questions

So I just got a gig (non-paying, but that doesn't matter) where I will be shooting and editing a feature length independent film, shooting begins in Jan.

This project has a very small budget, the producers are trying to raise $10k on Kickstarter to fund the whole thing. Most of the project will be pretty straight forward, but there are a few shots that will involve some light special effects such as glowing skin, but then there are five pages that involve a "dreamlike" sequence. I proposed that we shoot this with as many practical effects as possible and I will be taking a lot of inspiration from the Salvador Dali dream sequence in the Hitchcock film "spellbound". However, it will still need to be sent to someone who can add these visual effects.

My question, what will the workflow for this be like? I'm not going to do the effects so it will be done on another computer. I shot and edited a 20 minute short this past summer and getting my project to other people for sound design and color correction was a real bitch. I used XtoPro to give the audio people an AAF file. It got them all the sound, but it was a huge mess and they did not enjoy the extra organizational work they had to do. Then a few weeks ago on a smaller project I gave the same people an AAF file and some of the audio tracks had issues. The tracks still showed up, but there was no audio. This could be because I updated to 10.0.6 before they updated XtoPro and I have yet to try again after the update.

I also had issues with the person doing color correction. I gave them a hard drive with a duplicate of the project and events and they had some serious issues getting the XML to work in davinci resolve. He ended up just exporting a full quality video and just corrected that after having a program break the video apart into each clip.

I love FCPX when I'm working on my own, it's fast and very intuitive, but my experience working with others is really scaring me away from using it for a project that will be around an hour and a half.

With all of your experience, do you think I'll be able to pull off sending this to a color correction program, protools and after effects (or something like it)? Or should I look into Premier or Avid? I'm a student so I can get Avid for $300.

I also had a problem on my 20 minute project where half of my media somehow went missing. I would go to export the XML and would be notified of like 90 clips that needed to be relinked, but I didn't have any red notifications and my project played every clip perfectly fine. I ended up having to automatically re-link about 40 clips, the rest of them wouldn't re-link because "the media wasn't exactly the same" or some BS like that. So I had to re-import the original media, re-sync the audio and basically creat a new project and copy each clip one by one from the old time line and check to see if the media needed to be re-linked every time. If it needed to be relinked, I'd have to look at the original timecode and then put the newly imported clip into the new timeline. It was a really crappy experience, but because I basically edited the project again I tightened some things up and it did make the project better, just delayed things for a week. Why did this happen? I was able to keep my cool the last time because there were only 200 clips, but if this happens on a project that's an hour and a half long, I'll probably end up smashing my iMac.


On another note (because of an ad on this page advertising image stabilization), why does FCPX only offer the stabilization check box for some clips on my timeline? It's very random and the option for stabilization is just missing on some clips. The clips are from the same import so I have no idea why they are missing.

Since I'm still in my FCPX learning curve to hopefully one day achieve technogenius level, I won't be able to comment authoritatively or from experience as much as many here will. However, I'm very much looking forward to the responses to your excellent post, confident we have the people here who can give you informed solutions to allay your concerns. From reading your missive I would suggest that the 20 minute piece & its subsequent problems from last summer can't be compared to 10.0.6.

I would also suggest, & someone here will correct me if I'm wrong, but the clips in your timeline that don't show the capability for stabilization have most likely already been scanned for such upon import & found to not need it.

There have also been threads here recently regarding longer projects of an hour or more, with plenty of expert advice on compound clips & breaking the project into more manageable chunks depending on the capabilities of your specific Mac. Some searches here will avail you of that valuable information.

It seems to be a good bet that FCPX 10.0.6 is ready for a project of your size, & the team you work with. I'll be checking back for our resident experts' input as this thread will be one I'm following closely.

Hi Julian, as my time is limited here just a few answers to some of your questions:

1. AAf workflow with Marquis: The 2.0 Version with Pro features will lead to much tidier sessions in protools. It is important to set the roles in Fcpx correct. Sorting to roles works fine and merging subroles into parent role via X2pro is leading to far fewer tracks.

2. Color Correction: You might have to get rid of compounds before exporting the xml. Use the break apart clip item for that. You can also use EDL-X to create an Edl which can be used with a variety of Color Correction Apps.

3. Relinking. I used FCPX to edit three TV-movies this year and did not have that problem. Be aware not to alter the original files. Some other Apps might alter them if use them with the files.

4. Stabilization not working on some clips:
Stabilize will not work on compounds or synchronized clips in the timeline. Use the open in timeline command on the sync clip and you can apply stabilization.

Hope this helps!

Best, Knut

You have to make sure everyone that ends up with your projects for grading audio/colour have the correct update versions. This is one thing that bites about FCP X, the updates are so different that they are almost a new versions. DaVinci Resolve at the moment FCP X will not transfer added effects, spatial conform and compound clips. You have to add markers and break apart compound/syncronized/multiclip.

Your issues with missing clips, usually a beginner issue, make sure you back up those events on a separate drive. Most likely you had the timeline rendered so you could see the clip but the original media was moved or erased by accident.

For stabilisation make sure you have done an analyze and fix (under the Modify menu) for each clip in the event(s).