Wobbly first second or so of each clip. Fast workflow?

Here is a question about fast editing and a fast workflow.

I am not the steadiest shooter with my camera--generally the first few seconds at the beginning of the clip then end of the clip will be wobbly when I depress/engage the record button.

So if I shoot a whole bunch of clips and want to edit rapidly---just throw all the clips on a timeline sequentially, is there a workflow or short cut to automatically trim out the first(and last) second or two of *each clip* before placing it on the timeline? (or while on the timeline?)

It would seem helpful to me. Or am I just being lazy?

I wouldn't say lazy. That would be a pretty good feature to have FCPX automatically trim out or reject the top and tail of a clip knowing it was bad.

Anyways, it's pretty common to favorite the usable part of the clip. Since you can favorite and reject, you could also reject the beginning and end of a clip (that's really wobbly) and then go back and refine parts that are great with favorites.

The biggest tip here is to use JKL keys and mark ranges with I and O to help reject and favorite. Trying to drag ranges with the cursor will take forever.

Throw all your clips in the timeline,
command A
control D
- (type amount you want to reduce the end)

now all clips are shortened at the tail.

to shorten at the top,
command A
reverse clips
control D
- (type amount you want to reduce the end)
reverse clips again.
done.
I hope this helps.
In this way all clips will be shortened the same amount,
so you'll still have to trim every clip to your liking.

Control-D assumes all clips are the exact same duration. Otherwise you'll be cutting off needed content.

I do not find dragging the cursor slow, since you're running the "playhead" over the clip faster than JKL. But I'd use the Skimmer with I and O. That's what it's there for, make reviewing and marking very fast.

But, let's step back a bit. Even if you edit rapidly, I doubt you're going to use the whole clip of each and every clip, in the exact order they were shot. Or do you? Just go clip by clip, edit as normal, select a range, E into the Timeline.

Some good tips and concerns with editing in the timeline like that.

However, here's the biggest difference with FCPX and others. You aren't supposed to be cleaning up clips in the Project (timeline). You are meant to do that in the Browser. You can quickly select the beginning of a clip and DELETE to reject that part, and do the same to the end. You are then left with only usable portions of your clips.

1. Change the clip view to list instead of thumbnail
2. Select a clip

JKL keys: reverse play, pause forward play

3. Press L to get through the bad part of a clip and then press K to stop. You can refine if need be with J and then pause again with K.
4. Press O (this will automatically put an In at the top of the clip).
5. Press DELETE (to mark this section of the clip as rejected)

*Change the view of clips to Hide Rejected if it's not already*

6. Press L as many times as you need to fast forward through the clip until it gets bad and kit K to pause. Refine with J again and press pause.
7. Press i for your in point (out point will automatically be at the tail-end of the clip).
8. Press DELEET to reject the end portion.

ANOTHER WAY

You can also hover with the mouse and set I and O for in and out points instead of using the keyboard and JKL. This might be easier if you are used to doing things with the mouse.

After you do this process, all clips will be ready for editing into a project. Other NLE's don't have this type of functionality. Clip cleanup in the browser giving you a cleaner project (timeline).

Thanks everyone! I will make an effort to incorporate J K L and also try the using the list view while doing it.

I guess I have been just foolishly stubborn about learning too many keyboard shortcuts. It just feels "wrong" to me – but in this case when I have a ton of short clips I just want to compile, quickly edit and crank out, it is actually taking longer throwing everything on the timeline and then manually trimming there.

I need to adjust my thinking!

1 - The skimmer is infinitely faster than JKL.
2 - The more time you spend using keyboard shortcuts, the faster you'll get through your work.
3- Skimming being the exception.

zzchu wrote: So if I shoot a whole bunch of clips and want to edit rapidly---just throw all the clips on a timeline sequentially, is there a workflow or short cut to automatically trim out the first(and last) second or two of *each clip* before placing it on the timeline? (or while on the timeline?)

It would seem helpful to me. Or am I just being lazy?

I'm not sure if you're coming from another NLE or not, but throwing all your clips in the timeline to edit rapidly isn't the most efficient way to go with FCPX.

Taking advantage of the filmstrip view, favorites and keyword collections is the way to go. Any editing or trimming you do in the timeline doesn't help organize your media for future reference.

The workflow that I've been using since FCPX came out and that I've evolved into a pretty fast setup is as follows.

1. Reject all clips that you know you won't need.
2. Add all necessary metadata to audio and video clips (camera name, role, reel, etc...)
2.5 Sync all audio/video clips if necessary.
3. Apply custom clip names based on metadata (Scene/Shot/Take/Reel etc...)
4. Skim through clips and select ranges you want to use, then favorite those ranges.
5. Organize favorite clips into keyword collections.

This is a very fast process, but it makes the editing portion much much faster and when you're finishing a cut and need to find that one clip to completely nail the story, you know exactly where it is.

For me, organizing is one of the most important parts of the edit, especially if a client is ever going to watch a rough cut with me and ask for changes. I feel really embarrassed if I can't find the clip I'm looking for within about 10-20 seconds. So I always organize like crazy and in the long run it makes me job when I'm actually editing that much easier.