Workflow - FCP aligning audio/video assets
 

I'm a student and we did a workshop a couple of weeks ago. Basically, the workshop was a short film. We recorded video on a video camera and audio on a fostex fr-2.

All shots were slated but our video camera couldn't slave timecode from the fostex so we can only use slate for alignment of the assets.

So, the question is "What's the proper or acceptable method of aligning my video and audio assets in FCP?"

I can align them easlily enough in the timeline but would like to have them aligned prior to that so that I can mark in/out points before moving the footage into the timeline.

Any help is much appreciated.

David

Double click to open the clip in the viewer. Scrub through the clip and find the moment when the clapboard makes contact (left and right arrow keys move you a frame at a time)...hit "M" to make a marker there.

Double click on the audio file. look for the spike in the waveform where the clapboard makes its loud noise. arrows to get frame precise placement and mark that as well.

When you move them to the time line, you can now align the two markers to have synched sound. You can also use the link audio command (apple-L) to attach the audio to the video within the project. They will now move together.

Check the FCP manual on creating subclips.

Subclips are used to break a larger clip into smaller more manageable pieces. I don't think that would specifically be the best area to search for these answers unless that section has information on synching sound.

I'll pull out my manuals and double check.

Subclips can be used to make new clips in the project window with sync'd sound. This is a solution that aligns the audio and video prior to cutting, so you can mark in and out points and treat these subclips like normal clips, as per David's request.

I believe that this is the preferred workflow for editing a dual system project. It's mine anyway.

Cool, thanks for that info. I learn new things every day here :)

I did know how to make a sub-clip but was ignorant to the fact that it was necessary to achieve what I wanted to do.

Thanks again

I usually make a sequence and sync everything up and add bits of black where necessary to maintain sync and a flowing sequence. As long as you have one camera this method is usually best in FCP.

Basically instead of loading a master clip into the viewer and selecting from there you will now have a "grouped" sequence that you will load instead and cut from there. To load the sequence into the viewer and not actually opening up the sequence in the timeline is done by dropping the sequence from the browser into the viewer itself.