Workflow question

Running FCP 10.6.1

I am editing a short film and struggling with a simple question, which I am sure has been dealt with before, but I can't find the answer:

Imagine that I have a take that is quite long, say 2 minutes. I select a number In & Out points to use say 4 such segments on my timeline, interspersed with other cuts. I now would like to colour correct these segments on the timeline, so I open the source clip and make an adjustment. For my experiment I put saturation to zero to get a monochromatic result. I go back to the project timeline and this change is not shown in the inserted segments!

What is the correct way to do this?
Thanks in advance...

In your scenario you have to make the color correction before you edit the clips into the timeline. The clip in the timeline is a separate instance of the media.

I THINK I have found the answer, but I would like feedback from my learned friends here.

I take the source clip by itself and create a Compound clip with only the source in it. I use the segments from this compound clip on the timeline. I then go back and make any corrections to the compound clip and not on the source file. The timeline segments now reflect the changes!

Is this the best way?

That is one way to go, and it works.
The other alternative is to select the clip in the Browser, go to the Clip menu, "Open Clip". This will open the master clip into its own timeline. Do your adjustments there, then they will follow every copy of the clip you use from then on.

Why are you color correcting before the cut is done? That seems a bit backwards.

I agree with Oliver. I do the color correcting once my edit is done.

I definitely agree with the sentiment above - colour grading and colour correction should generally be done after you're finished your edit. If you're working with a clip that you come back to a lot in the project and want a consistent colour correction, I would also recommend the Compound Clip option. You can make the change inside the compound and it will be the same in every instance in your project. I do this frequently with interview footage so I don't have to copy/paste the colour correction on all the individual clips throughout the project.

Oliver Peters wrote:

Why are you colour correcting before the cut is done? That seems a bit backwards.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I am not doing colour corrections before cutting, which is why I want to have a single correction per clip and have this flow through to the subclips.

"I want to have a single correction per clip and have this flow through to the subclips"

Aah, this sounds like you want to do what's possible in Avid Symphony. Correct the first instance of a clip in the sequence and have that correction automatically applied to all other instances from that same clip at other points on the timeline. If that's the case, then no, this is not possible in FCP.

Oliver is correct, if you've already finished editing your project, there's nothing you can do. However, in the future if you edit with compound clips, that would be the workaround you're looking for.

PS: You can however apply a correction, copy it and paste attributes. By using the index, you could easily find the other segments from that first clip.

That is exactly what I am doing. I am at the beginning of the project and have just gone round creating compound clips of all the clips that I intend to use.