Keyword collections

Hi,
I'm having some trouble and probably misunderstanding moving/copying keyword collections. I have imported from a Canon XF100 into FCP. There were 19 clips imported into an Event called FOOTAGE. The second clip has 5 speakers. I have keyworded each speaker in that clip with their initials. I then created another Event in the same Library for each speaker with the intention of creating a Project for each speaker in that event. What I can't do is move a keyword collection from the FOOTAGE event into one with an individual speakers name. What happens is that when I drag the files from the keyword collection in FOOTAGE to the Event with the persons name all the the keyword collections in FOOTAGE move with it??

Is this because the clip name is also considered as a keyword? If it is does anyone know a work around or am I totally misunderstanding how keywords work and don't work?

I hope I have articulated this properly but please ask for any clarification if your not sure what I'm on about.

Best regards to you all, Geoff

Why create the other Events? Just create Projects in the original Event. Create a Smart Collection to group Projects.

If you go to a keyword collection, do a Select All for all the clips in it, copy/move them to a new Event, the keyword collection will go with them.

If you move the keyword collection itself, only the keyword collection moves, none of the content inside of it.

But again, why place all clips in one Event, and only a project in each of several other Events? Seems like a confusing amount of Events to me. Why not keep it all in one Event?

In FCPX 10.2.2, When you create a new library, a smart collection with 5 smart collections are created--All video-Audio Only-Favorites-Projects-Stills, and below that an Event is created with today's date as the title of the Event.

When you import into FCPX after creating the Library, all the media will be present in the All Video smart collection, unless you have only audio, then the audio would appear under Audio Only.

I would suggest after importing, to keyword each clip with the persons name, then create a new smart collection say call it SPEAKERS, in this smart collection tick only the boxes with the peoples names or initials.

The more keywords you create, the better the searching or creating smart collections will be.

I don't understand the need to create "projects" all you need is 1 library, 2 or 3 self created smart collections, namely SPEAKERS and B-ROLL [cutaways] and maybe OTHER [other material that does not fit into the 2 aforementioned categories.]

When you need to edit onto the timeline, you create a new project, really this should have been called NEW TIMELINE..but anyway, this is the projects I think you refer to, this new project/timeline will be found in the Smart Collection-Projects folder.

FCPX does a lot of sorting, just out of interest did you create a camera archive before importing?

"Hi Karma, Thanks for your reply and yes I think I was making it too complicated and now I understand it a bit better. Thank you for your help..
Geoff

Thanks so much. I think I was just trying to be bit clever without taking on-board what FCP does already. The smart collection for speakers names seems the best idea so thanks for that useful tip. I do have the original footage in a folder on another hard drive. Is that what you call a camera archive? Geoff

Sorry should have called you BenB

Hi Geoff, welcome to the forum.

This is perfectly normal and logical behavior, and there are two reasons for this:

1. Keywords belong to the clips they are associated with.

That's why clips always carry over their keyword(s) from one Event into another. When you drag a clip from one Event into another, its associated keyword(s) will also be copied into that Event. Which is exactly how it should be.

2. The same keyword can be associated with totally different clips in different Events.

In Event "Day1" you can have a keyword "People" associated with all the clips in this Event that show people.
In Event "Day2" you can have exactly the same keyword "People" associated with all the clips in this Event that show people, even though those people are completely different than the ones in Event "Day1".

That's why keywords do not carry over clips from one Event into another. When you drag a keyword from one Event into another, only the keyword will be copied over. This way you can use the keyword to assign it to other clips in that Event. Which is also exactly how it should be.

So, to recap:

- If you want to re-use an existing keyword in a different Event: select the keyword in the origin Event and drag it onto the target Event. Only the keyword will be copied, which is what you want.

- If you want to move all the clips that have a particular keyword associated to it into a different Event: select the keyword in the origin Event and drag its clips into the target Event. The clips and their associated keyword(s) will be moved, which is what you want.

But I do agree with Ben and Justine that there is really no need to split your footage over different Events. Keep everything in the Footage event and organize the Event with keyword collections for your footage (people, cutaways etc...), and smart collections for projects, external audio, stills etc...

Ronny

Smart Collections - Based on media characteristics that already exist. You can't force media into a Smart Collection unless it meets the strict physical criteria.

Keyword Collections - Any media can be added or removed at any time, arbitrarily.

A student of mine recently put it this way. You are born short or tall. Thus, if you're short, you can't belong to the tall person's club. That is a Smart Collection. But if your parents name you Tom, you belong to the Tom's club, and at any time you can change your name and belong to any Name club you want. That is a Keyword collection.

Now, before anyone says it, yes, a Smart Collection can use Keyword and Tagging parameters (as well as other arbitrary metadata). But the media has to have that arbitrary metadata BEFORE it can belong to that specific Smart Collection. Thus, it still is not arbitrary. I can drag any clip into any Keyword collection, but I can 't drag clips into Smart Collections. I can change a characteristic of a clip so it is allowed into a Smart Collection, but changing a characteristic does not automatically make a clip join a Keyword collection, I have to invite it.

Just putting that out there...

Hi Ronny,
Thanks for the mini tutorial , a real help and sorry for not getting back earlier. Life takes over sometimes!
Best regards,

Hi, Good analogy thanks very much
Best regards
Geoff

Hi Ronny,

Thanks so much. Its easy to go down the wrong track.

Geoff