Your favorite User Mistake you do frequently/the "Stupid Me!" thread .....

Ben's advice in this thread inspired me to start a UM-list (is UM a common abrv. for user mistake? … anyhow…). We have all sorts of lists of favorites, what about the baddies, we stumble upon every day/week ....??

classic and #1 on my personal list:

non-empty searchbox
… - and all of a sudden, clips gone, effects gone, whole projects gone. Panic factor: 8-10. Stupid Me factor: 10-10, because I KNOW, <space> doesn't mean <empty> :evil:

export nirvana
days of edit done, hours of export done (I'm on a very small Mac) .... and gigs of video vanished!! For unknown reasons, the save-to destination is set to some sub-folder on some rarely used drive (once exported a masterfile to my TimeMachine ... I would never search there for any files) Panic factor 2-10 (file exists, but where?), Stupid Me Index another 10-10 ...... more an 11, that is so stupid....

I don't know why, but I've had three former students contact me over the past couple of months, the issue being external hard drives being detached "accidentally", then they complain the project is corrupt. Um, yeah, DUH!

But more to the op point, yes, there are a few things I have students do over and over again. Once I collect my thoughts on the subject, I'm sure I'll post back here.

One BIG one, is forgetting to hit the "A" key, to go back to the Arrow (Select) tool, after using the blade, range, trim, or other tools, causing them to click or drag and mess up something big time.

I drill Cmd-2 into my students hard, because they often (and I still do this often) try to do something in the Timeline pane, and it's not the active pane, so either nothing happens or something happens you don't want to happen. I wish Apple would make the active pane more immediately visible.

The faux-pas I do frustratingly often sometimes, is when a try to go to spotlight and search for something but don't quite hit the command and spacebar at the same time, and end up typing words into the timline :lol: performing random eddits, not good!
Time for a few Comand-Z's.

My all time favorite is to make a new project and then use the open in timeline function to continue editing. What fun when the user can't find the project the next morning after a day's work.

When using the Transform tool onscreen controls I often forget to click Apply to Clip, then get crazy when no clicks I make anywhere else will work. I have a moment where I think FCPX has locked up until I realize what I've done - again.

+1 for forgetting to "apply".

I have my trouble with markers. If I want to add a marker to connected B-Roll I more often than not forget to select the clip first and thus end up with a marker on my primary. That sucks.

And what I really hate: I type with ten fingers and often I have my hands in waiting position above the keyboard. Sometimes one finger gets tired and hits the keyboard accidentally. It's always the one on the "D" which causes an overwrite edit. I hate my finger

I confess to having arrogantly scorned and ignored the frequent warning I received,

"YOU ARE COPYING BETWEEN LIBRARiES"

SO WHAT?
I would think. And carry on with one delightful mix of scenes from one library to another!

It took close to a year, before I noticed that I was then copying not just some short moment of brilliance between libraries, but the entire long clips in which they were contained.

There were many clips of several minutes duration or more which I now have many copies of, and it created a confusion because I now have no idea which library they were originally part of.

lol

HA HA HA, +1 to everybody!!

ok, a bit nerdie to laugh about your stories = asks for some degree of insight knowledge of FPX, but, anyhow .... great, been there, done that.

@Tom never saw this in the wild, but excellent reason for 'vanished' projects
@Overturf: ever tried to apply Markers in a Mutlicam-timeline ....? it kills you, promised
@ddixon: a classic, which mmediately raises the Q: Why 'apply' anyhow??
@Mark: same with Titles - you think, the box/text is activated, but …
@Ben: c'mon as a teacher your Can of Worms must be bottomless (note2myself: don't wrench phrases in foreign languages) - looking forward for your stories.-

Let me see...

I use a tablet and pen which, whilst quick and intuitive, can cause some issues occasionally with unwanted clicks - particularly when I move my hands to type. This happens most often when I want to search for an effect. I click in the search field and type away without realising that I've accidentally clicked out of the search field - thereby doing all kinds of random things through the keyboard shortcuts I'm inadvertently typing.

Another 'favourite' I do (in both FCPX, after effects and Premiere - when forced to use it by clients) is duplicate a project to make a revised version and then forget to change to the new version, making the changes in the old one instead.

Stare at the Titles browser, with a search term typed in, wondering why I am suddenly missing the Effect I'm searching for. After two minutes, DOH!

I'm not going to get started on what students do in classes all the time. First, out of respect for my students. But mostly cause there isn't enough space in this forum to list it all.

robertdee wrote: Another 'favourite' I do (in both FCPX, after effects and Premiere - when forced to use it by clients) is duplicate a project to make a revised version and then forget to change to the new version, making the changes in the old one instead.

instead of working with the dupe, how about you treat the dupe as your backup and keep working on the original one so you dont have to open the dupe in the first place?

I see what you're saying but the revised versions are usually to send to clients after feeback (edit1, rev1, rev2, etc) which helps me keep track of how many revision rounds (I usually provide 2 gratis for project fees) and also mean that when I return to tweak a job in a few months I know which one is the latest by the number.

My personal mistake is always not thinking far enough ahead when I start a project so I end up with some really awkward combination of connected clips that's taking me 10 times longer than it should - if only I'd made <insert storyline here> the primary storyline instead

In the middle of trying to recover from an edit that's tying itself in knots for just that reason.

jeff_kirkland wrote: My personal mistake is always not thinking far enough ahead ….

ahh, not just pushing the wrong buttons frequently, but conceptional sillyness ... yeah!

Like me:
at the beginning of each soccer season I promis emyelf "keep all material into a rigid folder structure" .... and a few months later strayed stills, mails, inbetweens, downloads, screen grabs anywhere ....

keep posting, start to feel not alone ........... :silly:

When duplicating a project for whatever reason, I love the Snapshot function. It time stamps the version for you. Then you continue with the original. That way you know you have a frozen copy, and when it was created, directly in the Browser.