Best workflow for graphics, where source clips need to be repeatedly updated?

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Level 1

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Best workflow for graphics, where source clips need to be repeatedly updated?

FCP's built for editing video footage, where the source clips don't change, and your work is mainly in refining the edit of those clips.

But I produce motion graphics and animation: the source clips I do my first edit with are blocky pre-viz clips, and as development progresses, each of those source clip files gets updated, again and again, with more polish / refinement.

I don't normally want to change the edit: just the source clips. So if I update "Shot_C_A" with a new version, I don't want to have to re-edit it over the old Shot_C_A - there may have been a number of cuts and transitions and effects that I don't want to lose.

I just want to swap out source files and let FCP know it'll need to re-render any parts of the timeline it features in.

What's the safest workflow for this? I read somewhere you can swap out source files as long as their durations (and codec etc) stay the same: so should I just make sure that when I create my initial pre-viz clips, they're all a little longer than necessary, for safety, and then I should be able to swap in new versions as and when?

How do I let FCP know I've swapped out a source file?

Before I start experimenting with workflows, I'd appreciate any pointers / advice from anyone who may have done something similar 🙂

Posted on Nov 16, 2018 3:00 AM

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Answer 1

Drew13

Level 6

12,387 points

Nov 18, 2018 2:53 PM in response to howiem

I am not sure if I am totally following the question, but it sounds like this basically.

Clip 1

Clip 2 (some kind of graphic thing that changes as revised)

Clip 3

There are a few approaches I use.

You can put a Motion file in the timeline and update the Motion file and it will update in the Final Cut Project.

You can also just update the clip. So if you have a 6 second clip with the graphics you can export it and the updated version will be used as long as same length, name, location etc. You can also use reconnect media function if you have variations and do not want to lose them by overwriting. So as long as the items are same length, etc. you can use Clip_2_A, then reconnect to Clip_2_B etc.

I will often just render a movie out of Motion, drop it in and then update the movie from Motion if it chances. Depends on the project but saves some processing and re-rendering.

But generally the same codec and time works fine for substitution in FCP Studio/FCP 7.

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Best workflow for graphics, where source clips need to be repeatedly updated?

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