How to pick the best takes in Final Cut Pro
Choosing takes often eats more time than the edit itself: you have to watch every attempt and remember which one was better. Final Cut Pro has ratings and keywords for this, and Rescanzo helps you gather every take of one line into a single list.
Ratings and filters in Final Cut Pro
Ratings are Final Cut Pro's basic selection tool. You can rate a whole clip or a range inside it, so in a long take you can mark only the seconds that work.
- Select a clip or range in the browser and press F (Mark › Favorite): a green line appears over it.
- Mark the bad ones with Delete (Mark › Reject) for a red line. Press U (Mark › Unrate) to clear a rating.
- In the Filter pop-up at the top of the browser, choose Favorites to see only your picks, or Hide Rejected to hide the rejects.
Keywords and Smart Collections
When there are lots of takes of different kinds, add keywords on top of ratings. Each keyword creates its own Keyword Collection in the event, and keyworded clips get a blue line. A Smart Collection (File › New › Smart Collection, or Option-Command-N) gathers clips by criteria, such as "favorites with the keyword 'childhood answer'", and keeps itself up to date.
Every take of one line with Rescanzo
The slowest part of choosing takes usually isn't the rating, it's finding every attempt. If a subject said the same thing several times, Rescanzo's speech search lists every place it found, and you can watch them back to back.
- Add your footage folder to Rescanzo and switch to Pro mode.
- Type the line the subject repeated, in Russian or English.
- Review the matches and add the ones worth comparing to a collection.
- Export the collection to Final Cut Pro (FCPXML) and rate the best take there.
Putting them together
A routine that works for interviews: Rescanzo gathers every attempt at answering one question, and Final Cut Pro keeps your decision about the best take in ratings and keywords. That way the selection survives if you come back to the project a month later.
What finding takes costs in Rescanzo
A Pro speech search costs 2 tokens plus 1 for every started minute the cloud checks, and the app shows the final price before you run it. The 50 starter tokens are enough to try it on your own interview before buying anything.
Questions and answers
Can I rate part of a clip?
Yes: select a range inside the clip and press F. Only that range becomes a favorite; the rest of the clip stays unrated.
Why keywords when there are ratings?
A rating says whether a take is good; a keyword says what it's about. Together they let you filter, say, every good answer about childhood in a couple of seconds.
Try it on your own footage
A new account gets 50 tokens: that's 25 searches in Mid mode.