FCP X: Collaboration Between Two Editors

Recently, John posted the following question on my website, in reference to my FCP X: Collaboration article.

“I have been searching for a workflow where pre-imported media that is referenced by two cloned Libraries is logged in batches by an Assistant Editor who is working with an identical copy of the original Media. The goal is to ‘Transfer’ only this logged metadata (Scene, Take, Roles, Notes, etc. to the ‘master’ Library (which is already linked to copies of the very same Unlogged Media).

The idea being that one Editor may begin to cut from Logged / Synced Footage on one Master Library, while the Assistant Editor proceeds to Log footage on a second Machine simultaneously, and can then update the Editor’s Master Library in Batches, to reference the latest Logged Metadata.

I would have thought that a ‘Merge Events’ Function would have been a straightforward, intuitive method to accomplish this – however, this reliably crashes FCP X 10.1.4, without even throwing the mythical error ‘Two or More Media Files use the Same Name’. It just literally hangs and stops responding . . .

Is there a method by which to accomplish the above scenario?”

Hmm… good question. So, I did some digging on Apple’s website and discovered a technique that may work when you need to share logging data, but not media or edits, between two editors.

Rather than use a Transfer library, as I wrote about in my article, when sharing logging (metadata) between editors, a better method would be to use XML; and not try to merge Events. XML can represent all of the metadata of logged footage, which is one of the reasons it is so great for asset management and dailies systems.

In the Library that is shared between editors, create a Transfer Event. Then, move all the footage you want to log into this Event and log it.

For example, all footage logged on Monday goes in to the “Monday Event” of the Assistant’s library. At the end of the day on Monday (or at lunch if you are really under pressure) the assistant exports the logged clips as an XML file.

NOTE: To export an XML file, select the Event you want to export in the Browser. Then, choose File > Export XML. In the resulting dialog, be sure the Metadata View is set to General.

Because XML is a very small metadata file, it can easily be sent electronically to the main editor. This editor then imports the XML which will create a new Event in their library.

If the file path to the media is the same on both systems (same number of levels, same folders and hard drive names) then the media will automatically link to the XML. If the file paths are not the same on the two systems, then the main editor needs to use the relink command to navigate to the correct media location.

The good part about this system is that it is easy to send incremental logging changes between editors, without sending entire libraries or losing existing work.

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