Saving time when you are editing can create some more opportunities for you later on in a post workflow. Now I know this is news to everyone out there, but its true. I’m going to briefly provide 7 tips I find useful getting through a cut in FCP. You may be aware of some of these – maybe I can shed some light on them.

1) Get Organized – From the moment you import, ingest, digitize… bring any footage in to FCP, log it. Give each clip a unique filename and log note. Filenames could be as simple as the name of the project and a series of numbers following it. Then I like to use the log note to be more specific about the clip. Writing exactly what might appear in the clip. There are many other fields to take advantage of in the log and capture/transfer window. I will say, logging P2 media from a P2 card or a fire store is quite time consuming… I like to import all the footage I need, as is, with the weird filenames give to each clip by the camera. I have built and Automator Action to batch rename all the clips I ingested. After doing that, you will have to re-import them into FCP. Once the footage is back in, then go through your footage and place log notes with the clips. Now this may seem like a lot to go through, but until Apple provides us a better way of batch ingesting media, this is the solution I have developed.

2) Button Bars – Button bars are relatively new to FCP, but they are powerful little buttons nevertheless. You may know where they are, but not know how to modify or use them. From the “Tools” menu, choose “Button Bar.” From here you can search for may keyboard shortcuts, menu commands, filters and other operations. Drag the commands/buttons into the bars above the browser, viewer, and timeline. Each of those places you can load up buttons that are specific for that window. This personally is one of my favorite tips to share with users. You can save button layouts by right clicking the button bar are choosing Save. Load them the same way.

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