Now don’t you just love it when you discover a new shortcut in FCP?  I know I do.  Especially if its a shortcut to a function I wanted but thought didn’t exist!

Well for the longest time I’ve wished I could do an Insert or Overwrite to the timeline yet keep the window focus in the Viewer window  instead of moving it to the Sequence... when I’m pulling multiple selects from long masterclips its frankly a bit annoying to have to keep switching back to the Viewer after each edit.  Yeah yeah, we all know editing by dragging and dropping to the Canvas overlays keeps the focus in the Viewer, but lets face it, thats hardly as efficient as using a keyboard shortcut is it?  I mean we’re trying to work fast here aren’t we, and if we’re going to use the mouse then we might as well just click back in the Viewer to refocus the window controls there anyway. No, a keyboard shortcut is needed.  Now we also know that the Q key can be used to toggle focus back to the Viewer from the Canvas and actually thats not too bad at all (its been what I’ve been using since forever) but the extra keystroke is still a tad annoying.

So imagine my joy when I realised that I actually could map Insert and Overwrite to do exactly what I needed!

And there’s more  .... how about FCP’s hitherto unknown Trim Mark In and Trim Mark Out functions? These two marvels of modern NLE technology allow one to cut and delete clip media in the timeline from the playhead position back to the clip’s in point (Trim Mark In) or from the playhead position to the clip’s Out point (Trim Mark Out).  Having had the dubious pleasure of working on many NLE’s tuned specifically for high speed editing, this has been a function I’ve come to know and love, but FCP has been sorely lacking. Or so I thought until I discovered that all I needed to do was just to map these hidden functions as needed ... personally I mapped them to Ctrl N and Ctrl M but thats just because those keys are where I’d find the same function on a different system I use.

And how about a Subclip Select shortcut ... a function that creates a subclip from a sequence select? Even better, a subclip that doesn’t have the word “Subclip” tacked automatically on the end of it’s name :-)  Everyone’s workflow differs of course, some like to quickly pull their selects from masterclips and then work with those selects reels as their sources. Others prefer to work from organised bin structures, using subclips to isolate the good stuff from the longer masterclips. If you work collaboratively, or if you just like both options, then being able to quickly turn selects into subclips is an absolute winner ... and again, whilst not a default keyboard shortcut, it just needs to be mapped in.

Ok. Obviously by now you’ve guessed none of this is quite as straight forward as it seems but fear not, it is quick and easy to set up ... and importantly, its free.

The magic spark that makes all this happen is the magical Spark utility from ShadowLabs.  Its a powerful shortcuts manager that allows us to create and manage Hot Keys to handle all sorts of wonderful stuff like launching applications, opening documents, executing AppleScripts and controlling open applications ... applications like FCP :-)

Now I’m not usually a fan of installing third party nonsense on my edit systems, but every once in a while I’ll make an exception for something special ... until that something special turns out to be more trouble than its worth.  So far so good with Spark. Currently at release version 3.0b9 don’t be fooled by the apparent beta status, this seems to be a mature release, and to date its running without introducing any apparent stability or performance issues on my Mac.

So what does it do exactly?  Well Spark basically combines two elements, firstly there’s a daemon ... thats a supernatural being such as an inferior divinity or ghost of a dead hero that  runs as an application process in the background rather than under the direct control of a user ( I guess I could be wrong about the supernatural aspect but the rest is probably right ), and secondly there’s the Spark application that acts as a front end user interface, where you can enable/disable the daemon itself, and create, edit and delete your Hot Keys.

So where do we start then?  First of all you’ll want to install Spark ... you can download it here:  http://www.shadowlab.org/softwares/spark.php

Next up, launch the app, and at bottom center of the app window you’ll see a small green button displaying the label “Start Spark Daemon”  ... you need to press that button.

Wait a moment, and you should see the green button status change to red and the button label change to “Stop Spark Daemon”.  If you see that then its all going great guns so far.

Next up we need to add Final Cut Pro as a specific target app.  We can do that by choosing the Toggle Application Drawer menu item from the Window menu.  When the drawer slides out we see the “Front Application” list, together with  + and -  buttons at the base of that list, which we can use to add or remove a target applications to the list.  So go ahead and press the + button, then browse to and select Final Cut Pro in the subsequent dialog.

Cool.  We’re nearly there.  All we need do now is to figure out how to set up some hot keys and assign some relevant keystrokes that those hot keys will generate for us in FCP.

So lets create a new function, an easy one to start:

Insert Edit to Viewer window ... and then bring the window focus back to the Viewer. Normally, as noted above, this is two keystrokes in FCP, F9 followed by Q.  We’re going to use Spark to assign both keystrokes to the single FCP key press Cmd-Opt-F9.

In Spark, choose File > New HotKey >  Text/Keyboard  (or press Cmd-7)

Click in the Shortcut field and press Cmd-Opt-F9

Click in the Name field and enter the text “Insert Edit / Set window focus to Viewer”

Click on the Keystroke tab

Click on the Record button and enter the keystrokes F9 and Q

Click on the Stop button

Then click the Create button

Congratulations, you just recorded your first macro!  How easy was that? Now switch to FCP and try it out ... cool huh?

And wha’dya know ... thats it really.  All that build up, and then when it came right down to it, it was pretty damn simple.  The rest is just a variation on the same theme.  All those wonderful new hidden functions described above are created exactly the same way, by defining a specific sequence of keystrokes and then assigning them to a single key press ... all you need is the recipe.  With a little thought you’ll soon be creating shortcuts for all new functions of your own design, custom built for your personal workflow.

Ok.  One caveat.  Nothings perfect ...  make sure you don’t inadvertently create an inescapable loop, or you’ll be having a less than ideal Spark experience.  Why not assign the F9, Q combo directly to the F9 key?  I’ll tell you why not, because it’ll rip a hole in the fabric of time and space or something bad like that. When Spark interrupts and then resends the F9 (followed by Q) on your behalf, then it will interrupt its own F9 keystroke send ... and over and over again ad infinitum.  Thats fine when you want a looping macro but not so fine if you don’t!

Here then are recipes for the above:

Insert Edit then return focus to Viewer :   F9, Q

Overwrite Edit then return focus to Viewer :   F10, Q

Trim Mark In: CTRL V, LEFT ARROW, X, SHIFT DELETE

Trim Mark Out: CTRL V, X, SHIFT DELETE

Subciip Selects: X, OPT A, RTN, CMD U, DOWN ARROW, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, RTN, CMD 3, DOWN ARROW, DOWN ARROW

You’ll want to be a little careful with this last one. If it runs too fast then you’ll get undesirable results.  Slow it down by changing the “Time Between Events” to 50ms.

Want to turn a whole sequence into subclips?  Have a play around with the “Repeat” option (couldn’t get it to work myself) or have the macro call itself with its assigned Hot Key as the last keystroke of the macro, and so create a looping macro.

The Subclip Selects recipe comes courtesy of the fabulous Mr Nick Meyers, as posted over on the LAFPUG Cafe LA forum. Thanks Nick.

Enjoy

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