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437Final Cut Pro User Guide
You can use roles in the following ways:
• Organize clips with roles and subroles: You can create subroles within a role to further
organize your clips, and you can create custom roles to add to the default set. To
get the maximum benefit from roles (including organizing the timeline or exporting
media stems), make sure your clips have the correct role assignments early in the
editing process. See
View and reassign roles in Final Cut Pro and Create custom roles
in Final Cut Pro. With iXML metadata, you can also create custom roles automatically
during import.
• Organize the timeline with roles: With a few clicks, you can organize the timeline
with “lanes,” in which all clips in the same role appear together in a separate layer of
the timeline. See
Organize the Final Cut Pro timeline with audio lanes. You can also
display and edit audio components for entire roles and focus the timeline display on a
specific role.
• Export media stems: A powerful benefit of roles is the ease with which you can export
roles as separate files (media stems). This process is often used when delivering stems
to match broadcast specifications or when handing off stems for mixing or post-
production. You can export roles as media stems in a combined, multitrack QuickTime
file or as separate audio or video files. See
Share roles as files with Final Cut Pro.
• Create and manage captions: Final Cut Pro features dedicated roles and subroles for
adding, editing, and sharing captions (including subtitles and closed captions). See
Intro to captions in Final Cut Pro.
For detailed information about advanced uses of audio roles, see Audio Roles in
Final Cut Pro.
Guidelines for using roles in Final Cut Pro
Keep the following in mind when using roles:
• Every clip component must have an assigned subrole (clips with audio and video always
have one audio and one video role). Still images are assigned the Video role by default,
but you can create a custom role for still images. You can also create caption roles—
for example, for subtitles and closed captions—with subroles for different language
versions.
Note: A role is a category; each role contains at least one subrole. What actually
happens when a role is assigned to a clip is that a subrole within the role is assigned to
a component within the clip.
• Video roles can’t be assigned to audio-only clips, and audio roles can’t be assigned to
video-only clips.
• Roles (specifically, subroles) can be assigned to audio or video components of a clip but
can’t be assigned to a clip range, or portion of a clip.
• You can assign different roles to each instance of a standard clip. For example, if you
add a clip from the browser to the timeline, copy clips between events, or copy clips
within the timeline, each of these clip instances is independent of the others.