Here’s one of the most useful “must memorize” keyframing shortcuts of them all: CTRL K
When the Timeline or Canvas has focus and a clip is selected, you can set keyframes for all the basic motion parameters at once by hitting CTL K. You can also use this shortcut in the Viewer.
You might also be aware that, if you only want to keyframe one motion parameter and don’t want to bother opening a clip in the Viewer and venturing into the rather unfriendly keyframing area of the motion tab, you can right-click the keyframe button (which you should never actually use) and you can then use the pop-up (see illustration at right) to choose a parameter.
Here’s where I use CTRL K all the time: for easily doing the old “Ken Burns” (or maybe the “Jack Cole Effect“) on photos right in my timeline. If I’m straight cutting from photo to photo, I just use Up or Down-Arrows to position my playhead on the first frame of a photo, select the clip and hit CTRL K. Then I go to the last frame (or maybe earlier) by hitting Down-Arrow and then Left-Arrow (to back up to the last frame of the clip I’m working on–Down-Arrow always takes you to the first frame of the next clip). Then, I use my mouse to resize and/or reposition my photo directly in the Canvas and, since I laid a keyframe earlier, the new positioning automatically creates a new keyframe. Of course, if you are later adding transitions, you may need to reposition these keyframes in the motion tab.
I don’t worry about the fact that this command creates superfluous keyframes (i.e., rotation) because it simply won’t matter–that’s why I never bother with the pop-up window shown above.
You can also choose to make this adjustment either “relative” or “absolute” which means you can either simply raise or lower the levels by a specific amount (absolute) or readjust the levels such that the peak is at your desired level (relative).
As you may know, the first time you open a new project in FCP, the app creates a series of folders (see image at left). These folders are, by default, created in the following location: User/Documents/Final Cut Pro Documents and this is probably on your internal hard drive. This is where FCP will now dump your captures, renders and various other files it creates as you work on your project. If you don’t point your “Autosave Vault” away to another disk (which you should really do as you hate to put your safety copies on the same disk as your project in case that disk fails), it too will be located there.
Here’s what you get: A complete set of folders that will provide a parking space for every conceivable element of your project in order to give you a consistent way to organize and manage your projects. No more saving things out to the desktop for lack of a better place to put it. This will make handing files off between members of a team a snap and give an organization a consistent way to manage files so that everyone knows where to look for the things they need.
The Wonderous Gadget that is the Trim Edit Window
Ah the Trim Edit Window! I have traditionally only used this handsome tool precisely 4 times per year: once each semester when I was teaching Final Cut Pro at SFSU and it came up in the lesson plan. Now that I no longer teach, I never use it. Maybe I’m missing out on something good and I do think it’s kinda fun to play with, but as far as I’m concerned, I can trim just as precisely by using the trimming workflow that I discussed several weeks ago. At any rate, I have a feeling there are some Trim Edit Window aficionados out there and this shortcut goes out to them:
When you hit CMD 7, the edit point nearest your playhead will be used (no need to select it) and the magnificent, impressive Trim Edit Window will open in all its glory over your Viewer and Canvas. Mercifully, it is not in the scope of this shortcuts blog to cover the mechanics of this stupendous edit point trimming machine and why indeed should I bother when Damon Abacherli explained it so beautifully on the the always excellent Ken Stone FCP site. You can also bone up on it here in Apple’s official FCP 7 documentation.
Now having been so glib about this fine tool, I will point out what I think is the coolest thing about it and I’ll admit that I should use it more for this purpose: it will allow you to trim more than one edit point simultaneously! That sounds a bit confusing, so allow me to explain. Suppose you have video on two or three stacked tracks. The edit points for each may not be lined up, but they are on separate tracks (the Trim Edit Window cannot simultaneously trim different edit points on the same track and that would be crazy–it’d be like Vulcan Chess). Anyway, it’s easy to imagine how, since you’re trimming what’s happening on one track and it may have a ripple effect, it would be efficient to trim the stacked tracks at the same time, right? Sure it would. To do this, simply select an edit point and then CMD-select the additional edit points and invoke CMD 7. You’ll only see one edit point in the Trim Edit Window, but you can choose which one you want to see in the Track pop-up menu at the top of the window. No matter which one you’re looking at however, all selected points will be trimmed. Pretty cool.
The other nice feature of this window is Job Security. It is so complicated looking, large and intense that, if you start using this in front of your producer, it will quickly put to rest any thoughts they may have entertained that what you do is easy (ha) and that they should start doing more editing themselves. Maybe I don’t use it because I’m a lone wolf freelancer.