Final Cut Pro User Guide for Mac
- Welcome
- What’s new
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- Intro to effects
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- Intro to transitions
- How transitions are created
- Add transitions and fades
- Quickly add a transition with a keyboard shortcut
- Set the default duration for transitions
- Delete transitions
- Adjust transitions in the timeline
- Adjust transitions in the inspector and viewer
- Merge jump cuts with the Flow transition
- Adjust transitions with multiple images
- Modify transitions in Motion
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- Add storylines
- Use the precision editor
- Conform frame sizes and rates
- Use XML to transfer projects
- Glossary
- Copyright
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Multicam editing tips in Final Cut Pro for Mac
The following tips can help you streamline your Final Cut Pro multicam workflow:
Set the date, the time, and the time zone on your camcorder or recording device before you shoot footage for your multicam project. This provides useful information to Final Cut Pro during the automatic multicam clip creation process (see Create multicam clips in Final Cut Pro for Mac).
Note: At any time, you can change the Content Created date and time of your source clips in the browser. Just select one or more clips, then choose Modify > Adjust Content Created Date and Time.
Because you can use the sophisticated automatic audio sync feature in Final Cut Pro to help ensure multicam sync accuracy, it makes sense to record audio on every camcorder and recording device in your multicam production. (Clear audio recordings provide the best results.)
Before you edit multicam clips in the angle editor, duplicate them in the browser to maintain clean backup copies.
To double-check the sync of individual angles in a multicam clip, open the clip in the angle editor and turn on audio monitoring for two or more angles at a time. You’ll hear immediately if the angles are in sync or if you need to adjust them further.
If performance becomes an issue while you’re working on a multicam project, do any of the following:
Set Final Cut Pro to use proxy media by choosing Proxy in the Media section of the View pop-up menu (in the top-right corner of the viewer). Proxy playback allows you to play back more angles at a time. To use proxy playback, you must have proxy versions of your media available, or you must create proxy versions. See Create optimized and proxy files in Final Cut Pro for Mac.
Make sure that “Create optimized media for multicam clips” is selected in Playback settings. This option transcodes video to the Apple ProRes 422 codec format, which provides better performance during multicam editing. This option is turned on by default. If the original camera format can be edited with good performance, you can deselect this checkbox.
Make sure that the disk holding your multicam source clips is fast enough to play back all of your media at once. To check disk performance, choose Final Cut Pro > Settings, click Playback, then select “If frames drop due to disk performance, warn after playback.” To find out whether something else is causing playback issues, select “If a frame drops, stop playback and warn.”
You can include audio from multiple angles, even after you’ve finished cutting and switching your multicam program. Select the multicam clip in the timeline and, in the Audio inspector, select the checkboxes to enable the audio components for the other angles in the multicam clip. With the timeline clip still selected, choose Clip > Expand Audio Components (or press Control-Option-S) to show the components in the timeline. Then select the individual audio components in the timeline and adjust the levels as needed. See Configure audio channels in Final Cut Pro for Mac, Manage role components in multicam clips, and Show expanded audio components.
You can use photos (from a still camera) in a multicam clip. If the date and time (Content Created) information matches the contents of the other angles, the photos are automatically adjusted in duration to “fill in” the angle.
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