Importing and Connecting Footage


Throughout these lessons you have worked with media files that you copied from the DVD over to your hard drive when you first started this tutorial. The clips and sequences that appear in the lesson project files are all connected, or linked, to those media files. If you want to access a media file but don't have a clip linking back to your media in your project, you must import a file. You can import a single file or an entire folder of files. In addition, when you move media or project files in your computer, the link between the clip and its media file can sometimes become broken, but there is a way to reconnect them.

Importing Clips

Importing a single clip file into a project creates a new link to existing media. Let's import different clips you can use to edit a sequence about vacations.

1.

Choose File > Import > Files, or press Cmd-I.

2.

In the Choose a File window, navigate to the following path: FCE HD Book Files > Media > Scenic Beauty > boat dusk. Select this file and click Choose.

In the Browser, a new clip representing this media file appears. You can also Cmd-click files to import more than one at a time within the same folder.

3.

Press Cmd-I to open the Choose a File window. Navigate to the Scenic Beauty folder again. Select the bird fly by file. Cmd-click the glass lake and waterfall pond files, and then click Choose to import these three files.

You can also import an entire folder of clips. This time, let's import using the shortcut menu in the Browser.

4.

In the Browser, Ctrl-click in the blank gray area under the Name column and choose Import > Folder.

Note

You can also use the shortcut menu to import a single file or files.

5.

In the Choose a Folder window, navigate to the Media folder, and select the Vacation Fun folder. Click Choose.

With this import option, only the folders, not the individual clips, can be selected.

Tip

Since the Import Folder command does not have a keyboard shortcut, you could make this command a button in the Browser button bar, if you think it's something you will use often.

6.

Press Cmd-S to save this project with the new files.

Importing Audio from CDs

It's easy to use material from a CD in your sequence, whether it's music, narration, or sound effects. You can simply import an audio track from a CD directly into your project and then edit it into your sequence. But don't forget that as soon as you eject a CD, you no longer have access to the audio file. It's a good idea to take an extra step and copy the track or tracks you want to use to a folder along with your other media files, or import the files using the Apple music program, iTunes, before importing the track into your Final Cut Express project.

1.

Press Cmd-H to temporarily hide the Final Cut Express interface.

2.

Insert a CD into your computer that has an audio source you could use to enhance the vacation clips in your project. Double-click the CD icon to view its contents.

Note

If iTunes opens, click the window and press Cmd-H to hide it for the moment.

3.

Press Cmd-N to create another Finder window. In this window, single-click the FCE HD Book Files folder and navigate to the Media > Import-Export folder. Position this window so that you can also see the CD tracks in the other Finder window.

4.

Drag the CD track you want to use in your sequence onto the Import-Export folder, and release it. After the track has finished copying, you can eject the CD.

5.

In the Dock, click the Final Cut Express icon to make its interface visible.

6.

Ctrl-click in the Browser blank area and choose Import Files from the shortcut menu.

7.

Navigate to the Import-Export folder and select the CD audio track you just copied there. Click Choose to import it.

8.

Select the music icon in the Browser and choose Edit > Item Properties, or press Cmd-9.

The Item Properties window opens, listing information about the selected item, including its file size and location. In this window, you can see that this file has an Audio Rate of 44.1 kHz. Although this is not as high as the DV audio rate of 48 kHz, the file can still be used in the sequence without having to render it. It is ideal, however, to change your audio rate to 48 kHz if you can, since Final Cut Express tends to run smoother when the clip settings match the sequence settings.

Tip

In iTunes preferences, there is an importing option that will convert CD tracks to 48 kHz as they are imported. See the iTunes Help guide for directions.

9.

Click Cancel to close the Item Properties window.

Importing Graphics

You may be able to create all the graphics you need right in Final Cut Express using text and other generated clips. But you might want to create some of your graphics in a graphics program. Final Cut Express can import single-layered graphics files and multilayered graphics files but treats them a little differently. It can import different file formats such as the TIFF format (with a .tif suffix), PICT format (.pct), or even Adobe Photoshop format (.psd).

Tip

When creating graphics for video, keep in mind that graphics programs use square pixels, whereas video uses oblong pixels. A perfect square created in a graphics program will look squeezed in Final Cut Express. To correct this in DV-NTSC, make the original file 720x534 pixels with 72-ppi resolution. Then make a copy and change the image size of the copy to 720x480. Import this version.


1.

In Final Cut Express, press Cmd-I and navigate to the Media > Import-Export folder. Select single layer (720x480).tif and click Choose.

When the Browser is in View as List mode, the file appears as a graphic icon. If you change the Browser to an icon view, you will see a thumbnail of the image itself.

2.

In the Browser, double-click this clip to open it in the Viewer.

The red circle appears round in the Viewer. It was originally created as a 720x534 image, and then the file was saved and changed as outlined in the Tip above.

Note

The original 720x534 image is also in the Import-Export folder.

3.

Press Cmd-I again, and this time select the multiple layers (480).psd file from the Import-Export folder.

If a graphic file has multiple layers, it is brought into a project as a sequence and is given a sequence icon. Both graphic files were brought in with a 10-second default duration.

4.

Double-click the multiple layers (480).psd sequence icon to open the file in the Timeline.

The file opens as its own sequence in the Timeline. Each individual Photoshop layer is placed on its own track, and since there are only video tracks in this sequence, the audio/video dividing bar is positioned low in the Timeline.

5.

Turn on and off the visibility of each track to view the sequence with and without that layer. Then turn visibility on for all tracks.

6.

Double-click the V1 layer to open it in the Viewer.

You can add filters or motion effects to graphic files, just as you would any other clip. You can even set keyframes to animate the images over time or animate individual layers of a multilayered file. Finally, when you edit this multilayered graphic file into another sequence, Final Cut Express combines the layers into one clip on one track. This way, you can trim and edit the multilayered graphic file as you would a single clip.

7.

In the Timeline, click the Sequence 1 tab. Drag the multiple layers (480).psd sequence icon from the Browser into Sequence 1 and release it as an Overwrite edit.

Note

Combining one sequence into another is referred to as nesting. You can build intros or entire segments in one sequence and then nest them into another sequence.

When a sequence is dragged into another sequence, it appears as a one-track item, no matter how many tracks it actually contains. You would double-click that item to open the sequence and work with the individual layers again.

Tip

You can use this concept of nesting in other ways. If you want to combine other sequences into one, just drag a sequence from the Browser into the target sequence as you would a clip. You can even open a sequence into the Viewer (Option-double-click) and mark In and Out points, and then edit the marked portion of the sequence into the target sequence.

If you want to edit a clip that was created in a different program that handles still images, video, or audio files, you can set that program as an external editor on the External Editors tab in the System Settings dialog box. Then select the clip you want to adjust in the Timeline and choose View > Clip in Editor to open the file in its original application.

Reconnecting Media

Clips in your project link back to specific media files on your hard drive. If you delete the media file or move it, you can break the link with the clip in the Browser because that clip no longer knows where to find its media file. The clip in the Browser becomes offline, and a red diagonal stripe appears over the clip icon. In order to use the media files, you must reconnect the clip icon in the Browser, or in the Timeline if it's already been edited into a sequence.

1.

Press Cmd-H to hide the Final Cut Express interface.

2.

Double-click the hard-drive icon to open the Finder window.

3.

On your hard drive, navigate to FCE HD Book Files > Media > Scenic Beauty.

4.

Drag the boat dusk clip from the Scenic Beauty folder into the Media folder so that the clip appears at the same level as the media folders.

The boat dusk file is now in a different location than when you imported it into your project earlier in this lesson.

5.

In the Dock, click the Final Cut Express icon to make the interface visible again.

The Offline Files dialog box appears, indicating "Some files went offline." You can forget the movie (or render) file so that Final Cut Express doesn't look for it again. Or you can reconnect to where the file is currently located. Clicking Continue will postpone the decision. The file will remain disconnected, and Final Cut Express will display the Offline Files dialog box the next time you open the project.

In the Browser, the boat dusk clip has a red diagonal line across it indicating that it is offline or disconnected from its media file.

6.

In the Offline Files dialog, click the Reconnect button to reestablish a link between the clip icon in the Browser and the original media in its new location in the Media folder.

The Reconnect Files dialog box appears with the filename highlighted. The previous path for this file appears above the name.

7.

Click Search to have Final Cut Express look for the new location of the file.

The Reconnect browser window appears with the clip highlighted. You can also click the Locate button to locate the clip manually.

8.

With the clip selected, click Choose. In the Reconnect Files window, the clip is moved from the upper Files to Connect area to the lower Files Located area. Click Connect to reconnect to the file at this location.

In the Browser, the red offline mark on the clip icon is removed, and you have access to that media once again.

Tip

You can also initiate the reconnect process by Ctrl-clicking the clip in the Browser and choosing Reconnect Media from the shortcut menu or by selecting a clip in the Timeline and choosing File > Reconnect Media.

Project Tasks

You now have several clips in your project that you can use to build a sequence about vacations. Take a moment to organize your project elements.

1.

Hide Final Cut Express and then put the boat dusk clip back in its original folder, FCE HD Book Files > Media > Scenic Beauty.

2.

Reconnect the Browser boat dusk clip to the media file in its original location.

3.

In the Browser, create a new bin and name it Vacation.

4.

Name the Sequence 1 sequence Vacation Images.

5.

Drag all the elements, clips, graphics, bins, and sequences into the Vacation bin. Collapse the bin so that you no longer see the contents.

6.

Press Cmd-S to save your project.




Apple Pro Training Series Final Cut Express HD
Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Express HD
ISBN: 0321335333
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 174
Authors: Diana Weynand

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