You’ve shot your beautiful footage and now you’re ready to get started importing! Importing is easy- once you’ve learned how! Create or open a Library to start. (Don’t know how? Click here for the tutorial!)
Now that you have a Library, create an Event.
Click File>New>Event or press Option + N on your keyboard. Your files will be organized on your hard drive like this: Root Drive>Library>Event Folder. In order to stay organized I create a Library for each client and an Event for each project. Continue reading…
Let’s talk about organizing our files within the library viewer in Final Cut Pro X.
This tutorial assumes that you have created a library, imported your footage, and that you are ready to start organizing your clips. The most basic level of organization begins with keyword collections. Keywords is like having a soft folder- nothing changes to the file structure to your files outside of Final Cut-the files are categorized and still available in the top folder.
Adding Keywords is easy! Check out the video above or read on.
Click on the keyword collection icon.
The icon looks like a key and is found directly below the event browser. A window pops up on your screen.
Click on a clip and then start typing into the keyword collection window. Hit “return” to add the keyword.
When you first start adding keywords it will start adding them to your quick keywords. These can be added to additional clips by clicking on the up arrow and number icon next to the keyword. You can also push “control + the number associated with the keyword” to add the keyword to the desired clip.
Now your clips are categorized!
Check them out, click on the different keyword collections and you can see just the desired clips that you set for each keyword.
For an advanced tip, you can select an in and out point of your clip (keyboard shortcut of “i” or “o,” respectively) and set those as a keyword collection.
FCPX will add just that selected section into the keyword collection. You could use this to your advantage by setting a keyword of “Best of” and put in just the good clips.
OK, you’ve organized your clips, but what if you want a further level of organization? That’s where folders come in!
First click File>New>Folder
A folder is added to your library under your event. The only thing that can be put into the folders is keyword collections or smart collections. You cannot individually put clips into the folder.
Drag and drop a keyword collection or smart collection into the folder.
You’ve just organized your files! Wasn’t that easy? These few simple steps can save you many minutes down the road of your edit.
As a review, the file organization structure looks like this:
Hard Drive>Libraries>Events>Clips
You can organize it into:
Hard Drive>Libraries>Events>Keyword or Smart Collections>Clips
You can organize it even deeper into:
Hard Drive>Libraries>Events>Folders >Keyword or Smart Collections>Clips
Collections can not exist without Clips. Folders can only organize Collections. Clips can not be placed directly into Folders.
While Folders and Collections are optional they can add much more organization to your workflow.
Bright Idea!
Use a folder to organize your audio keywords!
Name your folder “Audio Files” and underneath it have the keyword collections of “Music” and “Sound FX.”
