Am I really supposed to delete the items in the Timeline when switching projects?

Not sure what you mean in the analogy projects are like Photos. I don’t think that’s right. Projects are more like Projects in Photos.

Don’t just click a project in the browser, double click it to open it into the timeline.

No problem with your question. I understood there are many ways to implement working methods on FCP. This is FCP strong point. Very puzzling when you start, because you can't understand what's right or what's wrong.

I can tell you how I do.

You are right, Events are sort of albums, or rather folders. You can have many or have one, which is the solution I choose for the sake of simplicity. You can rename them. Move stuff back on forth between Events. Whatever. And very handy.

To test or create scenes I start creating Compound Clips. They contain some of my rushes. Most important of all, Clips can contain Clips. That is very powerful, as they can be modified any time and created at will. You can even rename them on the fly, and that will not affect any other Clip or Project using them. I use this feature a lot.

I use Projects only when I am ready to produce a clip, that I usually export. At that stage my Project/s contain/s all my Compound Clips I am happy with. Thus, Projects Timeline is usually simple.

Then I usually remove all unused Compound Clips (and Projects) that I didn't use. FCP warns you if you attempt to delete a Clip that some other Clip or Project is using. That is really handy. Deleting a Compound Clip or a Project never remove the rushes or audios you imported. All imported stuff stay in your Events as long as you don't explicitly delete it. Which I never do.

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Claude

It's perfectly fine to ask newbie questions here! Welcome to the forum.

Be careful with the advice you find on the internet, as some is completely wrong!

You need NOT delete one project to create another. That is WRONG, and stupid.

FCP is great application that comes with a learning curve.

I strongly recommend that you take some time to learn it properly. It will save you many headaches along the line.

For a great introduction to FCP, so you learn the several parts of the application, its workflows and, also very important, the right terminology, it is great to follow a well thought out introductory course. I strongly recommend the course at izzyvideo.

It is professionally done, divided into short videos that you can easily follow, even includes media, so you can reproduce what is taught, and, amazingly, it is free.

stevenfromyokohama wrote:

So then, is there a master timeline where I can combine all the different projects?

No there is not.

You would create what you describe as a Master Timeline manually the same way you create a New Project.

After creating the New Project you would copy and paste already created Projects which appear individually in their own Timelines into one combined Timeline.

eg. Project 1 is the start sequence of your show, it appears in it's own Timeline.

Project 2 is the middle sequence of the show appearing in it's own Timeline.

Project 3 is the ending sequence appearing in it's Timeline.

Create a Project called " My Master Project"

Copy and paste Project 1, 2 & 3 into My Master Project. You are done.

Note: Doing this copy/paste action does not create duplicated media using up your drive space.

It simply tells FCP what to do with your existing media already imported to your Mac.

Al

stevenfromyokohama wrote:

[...] So I don't see the purpose of the Projects: Why create separate projects if everything you edit is on (and visible) on the Timeline? The series I watched doesn't address this and he never switched between Libraries or Events.

I create a Project every time I need to export a mp4/mov. In particular, whenever I need a new version of a video I am working on. Or whenever I need to experiment on effects, titles, etc.

In the end, I keep only one Project that I rename to the name of the video file I am going to create and export. The reason for renaming is that FCP is going to give that name to the mp4/mov file that it'll create. That is very convenient later on to identify exported files with the Project it has been exported from.

I create a new Library for each new film. I import rushes, videos, etc to each Library making copies (not references since my film are pretty short, under 15 min) in a newly created single Event. This way I can copy back and forth my Libraries files (*.fcpbundle ) and edit them on different computers. I am using WD portable 4 Tb HD to edit them. No SSD. Yet... Too €-pricey for now. Raid desk HD for backup.

Again, this is my workflow of today. That may change with need, time, and... experience.

So, to be clear, as I'm working on different projects everything from other projects will be visible. Is that right?

Absolutely. But not frozen. Projects are not backups, in particular they may share Compound Clips. Modifying one of the CC will affect all the Projects using it.

I will go check out the tutorial you recommended. Thanks.

I watched it. It is very good.

One of the problems with FCPX is how they decided to name the components in my opinion. The nomenclature isn't the best. Apple could have been much clearer in naming these things, it's something that comes up again and again when I teach FCPX. Also, yeah, it's not obvious that you need to Double-Click some things but not all INSIDE an application, like Projects require a double-click but Events and Libraries only need a Single-Click. It trips up people time and time again.

Library > Event > Projects is a bit misleading. I like to think of it and explain it as when I teach friends as:

Client > Product > Commercials (or Videos or Video Edits)

Library is the Client, Event is the Product, and Projects are the individual edits/videos

One of my friends thinks of it as Band > Album > Music Videos

I tend to keep one Library for each Client. For example:

Car Company > Car Model > Car Commercials

A "Project" is what was known as a Timeline or Sequence (it's the video you're editing) and Projects live inside Events. So while you can keep a Project for anything in any Event, it's good practice to keep the Project (the edit, timeline, sequence, whatever you prefer to think of it as) inside the Event for its subject.

(Library) Car Company > (Event) (2021 Model Sedan) > (Projects) (2021 Model Sedan 60 sec cut, 2021 Model Sedan 30 sec cut, 2021 Model Sedan 15 sec cut)

There is no "Master" timeline, rather each Project (created with the key combo Command N) is a different edit, a different video project. You can have as many Projects (video edits) as you need. It's not good practice to delete the contents of a Project (an edit) and re-use it. Rather it's better to create a new Project (edit, timeline, sequence) for each video you want to create. This way you retain access to them for future re-use, changes, etc...

The only "gotcha" is how FCPX handles Compound Clips (they're like Nested clips in older FCP 6 and 7). Each Compound Clip links to a "Parent" compound clip and so if you copy/paste a Compund Clip to another Project, then change it, ALL other instances of that Compound Clip will change. If you don't want it to you have to Clip > Reference New Parent Clip. It can be tricky to keep up with many compound clips but they can be VERY handy for making and reusing title cards and things.

I can only emphasise Luis' suggestion that you watch or preferably download all the chapters of the IzzyVideo tutorial.

https://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-tutorial/