How to Apply Roles to Feature Film Clips

I am editing a documentary in FCPX 10.1.1 that will require me to cut in many feature film clips. The feature is one continuous clip with 6 "layers" of audio — 2 dialogue, 2 EFX and 2 music (tracks).

How do I apply Roles to my feature clip to each of the 6 audio tracks, while still in the event browser, so that when I cut the clips into my project, the roles will already be assigned to each type of audio (dialogue, EFX and music).

I need to assign roles because at the end of my project (my job, not my sequence ), I will need to deliver a textless version of my project with split audio tracks, so I need to be able to export out all of these types of audio tracks separately — I can't just export out a comp.

Thanks for any help!
Curtis

Open the feature film clip in it's own timeline (right click-> Open in Timeline). You may have to do this again for the audio track, so that you can see all iso tracks. From there you can assign a Role to each individual audio track.

Chris has a good tutorial on his website about roles

chrisfenwick.com/home/2014/1/9/tutorial-...nd-localization.html

Soundwise wrote: Open the feature film clip in it's own timeline (right click-> Open in Timeline). You may have to do this again for the audio track, so that you can see all iso tracks. From there you can assign a Role to each individual audio track.

Excellent — Thanks Soundwise! As much as I absorbed watching the video tutorials on FCPX, "Open in Timeline" was something that totally escaped me.

So I was able to add roles and sub-roles to all 6 of my audio tracks very easily and then I tried cutting sample clips into my project and after expanding audio components of those clips, I could see that not only were all of the audio tracks there, but the roles did in fact transfer!

CAN'T ADD ROLES TO STEREO PAIRS:
The only thing that slows me down, that could just be current limitation (as of v. 10.1.1), is that I can't seem to be able to take those 6 tracks, which are actually 3 stereo pairs (L,R for dialogue, efx and music), make them stereo (by selecting them as stereo in the pulldown of the Channel configuration of Audio tab the Inspector window) and then cut them in AND have them retain the audio roles I just gave them in the "Open in Timeline" view (which seems to make you apply them only to separate mono tracks).

If I assign the roles to each of the 6 mono tracks in the "open in timeline," and then go up and make them 3 stereo pairs, and then cut a sample clip into the project, the stereo pairs show up perfectly, but the roles assigned to each of the three pairs does not reflect the roles given to each of the 6 tracks. Instead, all of the three pairs is showing up as "Dialogue Feature." The other 2 don't seem to maintain the role of "EFX" and "Music."

This is a limitation I can live with though if I have to. The only downside is that if I need to lower the audio of any of the "pairs" in my project, I have to lower each of the 2 separate tracks one at a time and make sure I get the db amount even, instead of being able to change just the 1 (track) — if I could make it a stereo pair.


MORE INFO:
If anyone reading this wants to know more about the additional capabilities of the "Open with Timeline" feature, I just found this useful article by Larry Jordan (e.g. adding color corrections to clips BEFORE you cut them into your project): www.larryjordan.biz/fcpx-open-in-timeline/

willypimentel wrote: Chris has a good tutorial on his website about roles

chrisfenwick.com/home/2014/1/9/tutorial-...nd-localization.html

Thank you willypimentel! I remember watching a video tutorial on this type of information some time ago, so I knew in the back of my mind this was going to be my end goal — to be able to export out split tracks in this manner with Roles.

But, it's been some time since I saw it, and Chris' precise and short video did a great job of reminding me exactly how I will be doing this in a couple weeks for output time. Thanks for sharing! (I've got it bookmarked if I need to revisit it)