FCP/STP workflow suggestions

I am editing wedding video and although I am comfortable in FCP I have not incorporated STP into my workflow yet. My question is how best to do this. I have worked through a book to become familiar with STP, but it's the integration of the two that they spend too little time on. The scenario is I edit possibly hundreds of clips into a video in FCP and then send a sequence to STP as a multitrack project. Now, since I've done a multritrack project I have one of two options for getting the audio back to the FCP project.
1. I can either choose to export the audio as a sound file and then go back into FCP, mute all my existing audio, and then import the STP created audio file.
2. Send the whole thing to Compressor straight from STP.
My problem is I can do the whole edit in FCP, be happy with the results, do all the audio post production work, create the DVD, and then if the customer comes back wanting changes I suddenly have a dilemna. If they ask for just one clip to be modified/changed in FCP I essentially have to redo all of my Soundtrack Pro work again, don't I? I mean the original STP project is no longer valid because I've changed the source material it relies on, so it all my STP work need to be done again? Please tell me there is something I'm missing, a better way? It's a tough issue for me to wrap my head around because it seems no matter which option I use from above the issue of re-edits causes another issue. So, to clarify.
1. Which workflow from above would your recommend, export the audio and reintegrate to FCP or go straight to Compressor?
2. Any ideas on how to handle the re-edit issue? Is there an alternative workflow I haven't considered that makes re-edits easier to deal with in this scenario?
Thanks in advance.

The most honest answer your going to get is, it depends. If ingesting the whole interview into FCP and then looking at it works for you then fine. Do it that way. There are others who would have gone into the interview knowing what they wanted out of it and could tell what parts to use. Still another possibility is to sit down and play the clip in quicktime and take notes of what is of use and just ingest that. Still another way is, the get the interview transcribed (with TC note) and decide from the transcriptions what parts you want to use. Really kind of depends on you.
Sound tweaking. Hmm. got to go with it depends, again. What type of tweaking. Levels? Do them in FCP. Looking to get rid of an offensive sound (hum) do that in STP and do it to the whole clip before you start editing. Remember that almost anything you do to the sound won't actually make it better. A particular annoying thing can be minimized, but that doesn't make it sound better, that's done in the recording.
o| TOnyTOny |o

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My question is, does anyone here have any workflow suggestions for doing what I am talking about.
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Any thoughts would be great, thanks in advance!

You're not going to get anywhere beyond 10-bit. That's it.
Try encoding to 10-bit LOG dpx if you need upscale RGB.
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Through reading other posts here and experimenting, I've found that Aperture basically defulats to showing me only the imported RAW photos and that I need to click "New Version from Master JPEG" to see the JPEG version. This seems counterintuitive to the workflow I'd like to establish though. (i.e. I'm thinking it would be nice to see only the JPEG versions, and then only bring up the RAW version when the photo needs some serious correction).
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Message was edited by: Nate Cannon

Try this - I do this as a matter of course:
-select all of the photos after importing them into a project
-create a new album from selection/call it JPG
-with all of the images still selected create new version from master JPEG. all of these should now be the album pick
-close all stacks, the JPEG will be the one showing up on top for that album.
RB
More here: [Aperture RAW+JPG|http://photo.rwboyer.com/2009/01/14/aperture-2-quick-tip-shooting-rawjp g>

Songwriting workflow suggestions needed!

Hi,
I am a beginning/intermediate Logic user. Am writing songs/tunes... and am experimenting all over the place. This is leading to an Arrange page nightmare.
For instance, I usually sing a melody over chord changes... so there's my A section let's say. Then I reharmonize the chords a few times before I find just the right combination, then I sometimes fiddle with the melody, then I come up with a few possible B sections... then I have a few arrangement ideas - one bassline.. perhaps a different one... maybe I'll transpose a B section...
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I get confused.
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What you need to do is comp your takes to one master track, this applies to the bass, the guitar, the flute - whatever. Once you have taken all of the best bits and put them on to a master track, you can put all of the unused bits into a folder, label it "bass takes" for example. Then - very important - change the track from being a folder to being "no output". This way you are assured of not accidentally unmuting things you don't want to hear.
I find that color-coding various takes helps to keep them straight. I usually use red for my first take and move through the color chart for each later take.
So, read the manual about packing folders, coloring objects, changing the track type (from audio to audio instrument to midi to folder to no output).
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I work with FCP on projects where we capture an entire film (two reels, about 20GB DVPal), then edit this down to 30 or so sec spots and then online at Blackmagic 10bit. Right now we have some freelancers who will be working on their own computers at home using Avid Express HD on Mac laptops, and then delivering us an edl of their cut. I was just wondering if anyone knew of a way where we could capture the film here and then transfer to an external drive for the freelancer to cut the promo that would work in Avid. I gave them a clip captured at DVPal to test, but it took over 5 minutes to convert a clip to OMF?? for use in Avid, and the clip was only 1min30 long, which isn't much use when we will be giving them a 90 min film. I know this seems like an odd way to do it, but we're trying to create the least amount of work at both ends.
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Since avid uses the OMFI format then there is no easy direct way to xfer media between the two. You can take the diged files from FCP (which are quicktime) and import them into Avid but they are transcoded to OMFI and I am almost certain (but not 100% - and not at my Avid this month so I can't test) that you loose timecode.
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Hi all, having some real problems with a charitable recording I have done for the kids local theatrical group and wonder if anyone can help. Here is the issue:
Recorded kids play with single cam with onboard mic. Used Sony HDV A1 which has used track 1 for the audio from the shotgun mic and has put the audio from the onboard stereo? mics on track 2. Audio is as good as its going to be with the shotgun mic apart from the times when parents are clapping when it distorts.
Have the whole play in 2 long - 45mins - runs without any stop start.
I then put the sequence on the timeline and use the razor blade to split the various scenes (need to cut some of the play out). Now have the whole play with 2 audio tracks with cuts where I want them. Tricky bit comes next.
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So, I take it there is a better way but any idea how I should do this? Working with the 45 minute clips on the timeline is nice and easy but how do I handle the audio? Just want the one track replicated across audio 1 and 2 plus for STP to just handle each section of the sequence rather than the whole thing.
Many thanks in advance,
Michael

Hi Jim,
Many thanks - this has helped a lot and I can now work on the audio with each clip and the resulting file size has gone down to a fraction of the original.
Any thoughts on the 2nd part of my question around audio tracks? As mentioned my Sony A1 seems to have captured two tracks and I need to discard one (the onboard mic). If I do this by simply deleting the 2nd Audio track in FCP when I open the track 1 in STP I can see it again. I guess by removing it from the FCP timeline does not result in removing the track from the referenced file that is sent to STP.
Tried converting tracks to mono in STP, saving and returning to FCP but then I get a 'reconnect missing media' error as the number of tracks has changed. When I reconnect it works fine (mono audio from both left and right) but the red \ through the file name audio symbol is still shown against the STP file name in the FCP browser. Suppose I can live with this but the red \ is probably telling me that I am doing something wrong!!
Thanks once again for the help so far,
Regards, Mike

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The issue that you are facing is that you did not realize that COLOR would render new media, and it is all video ONLY.
The workflow that succeeds for sharing projects is one in which the media moves with the project.
You do not need to move everything everytime. There is a strategy using "Media Manager". Your production partner should "Media Manage" the locked project to the transport drive. You would open that and create a target directory on that drive for COLOR. Render your graded COLOR version to it, do a Send To... FCP, where it will create a new (from COLOR) sequence in the original FCP project and return the whole shebang to the editor. Beware that there may be some panning issues with the XML -reconnected audio. In that case, copy the audio from the original FCP (for COLOR) into the new (from COLOR) sequence. Or bake it out from the original and drop it into the new graded sequence, or wait for the finished wav from the audio post house.... oh, wait a minute, you're probably not getting the audio mixed or sweetened, but whatever.
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FCP - Color Workflow Question

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My sense is that I may be able to minimize the workload by:
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My question under the scenario directly above is how do you then split the Quicktime movie into the individual clips in Color so that each clip can be graded individually?
The only other alternative I can see is to:
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2) send sequence to Color for grading
3) roundtrip to FCP
4) apply Smoothcam filter (and sharpening filters) to all of the individual clips again after color grading is totally complete
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Not quite six of one and half a case of the other, but you are in for some effort either way. Thomas Edison had an observation about "opportunity" arriving dressed in coveralls, but most people take a pass on it because it looks like "too much work".
If you elect the "bake out one big QT file" workflow, there is some efficiency to bringing the new QT onto a copy of the originating timeline and using that as a cutting guide to "razor in" the event boundaries, and then send that to COLOR. It will save a significant amount of re-rendering time.
If you remove the Smoothcam and other filters and send the raw source media to COLOR, that would be a normal workflow. I'd imagine there will be a significant amount of "attribute" copying after the fact, and of course all the smoothcams will have to go through "re-analysis". (I'd send a duplicate sequence, so the original filtered sequence can act as a source.)
The smoothcam filter will probably yield a different rendition on the COLOR-graded media, since the Boolean re-scaling (to keep the image within the active picture area) may not exhibit the same behaviour -- since you will only be dealing with the selected footage, rather than the entire source clip.
Sending the clips with an attached Smoothcam filter would probably result in massive render times, since FCP requires the entire intact source media to compute the stabilizing script, similar to sending a clip with a speed adjustment.
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For one, try something in the Canon XF series. At the low end is the XF 100; at the high end iks the XF 300. FCPX will be happy editing the native MPEG codec…or you can optimize. Good candidates for what you want, but there are other contenders.
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I'm editing audio sent from a FCP sequence as a mulitrack project. Can anyone with experience tell me how they go about cleaning up the audio, what do they do, in what order and why? Yes, this is broad, so I'll narrow it with some specifics. The audio I have is from an outdoor wedding so here are the tasks that need to be done that I see.
-analyze and remove clicks/pops and clipping (editor)
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As of now these are the things that need done and that is the order I've thought of doing them in. Can anyone with experience tell me if I've got these tasks obviously out of order? I love STP, but I'm new to audio editing as a concept so I'd like to get some advice on logical steps to follow such as what steps to do first, second, etc. in STP.

Either export the audio to 48k, or recapture it in FCP. iMovie captures as DV streams, where FCP uses the codec expected by the sequence settings.
If you recapture in FCP set the capture settings to 32k 16 bit.
There is no other "fix" here don't believe.
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Image: Adjustments: Match Color? I have never found this useful but maybe it's what you need. I would use it on a duplicate layer because as far as I know it's not available as an Adjustment Layer.
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I'm working on my first video "production" in a long while, and it's my first time delving into the world of HD and mixed formats. So I'm feeling a bit like a fish out of water.
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Import those AVI clips into bins and edit directly
Save Timeline out to AVI
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Edit using a 1080i30 (60i) timeline(sequence)
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Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah, I guess that's the thing: the final output, while it will be computer/internet playback, doesn't necessarily have to be at full hd. In fact, I'd rather it be 1280x720, since not all laptops (typical of what our sales people will have) will be able to handle playback of HD video. I really just want them to be able to play this video back in PowerPoint or directly through WindowMedia/QuickTime at 100% or fullscreen mode, and still be high quality to the viewer (typically in a conference room/board room, on a projector, an large monitor, or directly on the laptop screen)
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Answered my own question
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