1.5

Before You Export Your Final Cut Pro Project
Whether you’re working on your own project, or preparing a client’s project in advance
of a Color grading session, you should take some time to prepare the Final Cut Pro
sequence you’ll be sending in order to ensure the best results and smoothest workflow.
Here are some recommended steps.
Move Clips That Aren’t Being Composited to Track V1 in the Timeline
Editors often use multiple tracks of video to assemble scenes, taking advantage of the
track ordering rules in Final Cut Pro to determine which clips are currently visible. It’s
generally much faster and easier to navigate and work on a project that has all its clips
on a single video track. It’s recommended that you move all video clips that aren’t being
superimposed as part of a compositing operation down to track V1.
Remove Unnecessary Video Filters
You aren’t required to remove video filters from a sequence you’re sending to Color. In
fact, if there are one or more effects filters that you want to keep, then it’s perfectly fine
to leave them in. However, it's not usually a good idea to allow filters that perform color
correction operations (such as Brightness and Contrast, RGB Balance, or Desaturate) to
remain in your sequence. Even though they have no effect as you work in Color, they’ll
be redundant after you’ve made additional corrections, and their sudden reappearance
when the project is sent back to Final Cut Pro may produce unexpected results.
Organize All Color Corrector 3-Way Filters
Color Corrector 3-way filters applied to clips are handled differently; they’re automatically
converted into Primary In room adjustments. However, if more than one filter has been
applied to a clip, then only the last Color Corrector 3-way filter appearing in the Filters
tab is converted; all others are ignored. Furthermore, any Color Corrector 3-way filter with
Limit Effects turned on is also ignored.
Converted Color Corrector 3-way filters are removed from the XML data for that sequence,
so that they do not appear in the sequence when it’s sent back to Final Cut Pro.
Note: Because Final Cut Pro is a Y′C
B
C
R
processing application, and Color is an RGB
processing application, Color Corrector 3-way conversions are only approximations and
will not precisely match the original corrections made in Final Cut Pro.
Divide Long Projects into Reels
To better organize rendering and output, and to maximize performance when you work
with high-bandwidth formats (such as uncompressed high definition, RED, or DPX media),
you should consider breaking long-form projects down into separate 15- to 23-minute
sequences (referred to as reels) prior to sending them to Color. While reel length is arbitrary,
film reels and broadcast shows often have standard lengths that fall within this range.
(Twenty-two minutes is standard for a film reel.) If your project has an unusually large
number of edits, you might consider dividing your program into even shorter reels.
96 Chapter 4 Importing and Managing Projects and Media