Turning Markers into Subclips for Batch Exporting

You've made a bunch of Markers along a long clip and now want to Batch Export them and find that you can't because Batch Export in the Menubar is grayed out and right-clicking on them in your Bin doesn't show Batch Export either.

No problem; you have two simple solutions:

Solution #1:

Highlight all the Markers you want to Batch Export and hit Command + U which will turn them all, instantly, into Subclips. They'll be loose in your Bin so prepare for the mess early by naming the Markers something helpful before you do this.

Then Batch Export away.

Solution #2:

Create a new Bin (Command + B) in FCP's Browser and then drag your Markers (helpfully named) into your new Bin and they'll automagically turn into Subclips.

I like this method because it helps a project stay organized in the Browser window.

Showing Clip Names In Your Sequence Export

Lets say you want to export a sequence from FCP but have the clip's names over the footage like supers or subtitles. You could manually add text elements over each clip and type in each clip's name but if you have a ton of clips then it would take forever. So here's a nutty way to do it.

01) Save your project or duplicate the sequence in case something goes wrong. To be really safe make a duplicate of your project save file before you do this.

02) Highlight ALL the clips that are going to be in your timeline. (highlight them in the Browser)

03) Hit Shift + D to bring up the "Make Offline" window and choose "Leave Them on the Disk" to make them offline. Don't delete or trash them though.

04) In the Canvas you'll see the big scary red offline screens but you'll also see the missing clip's name.

05) Now comes the crazy part. Export the offline sequence. It'll make a movie file with the red offline screens perfectly timed to your clips.

06) Import that into FCP.

07) Reconnect your clips.

08) Layer the offline exported clip as the top video track and set it to like 20% or less opacity.

(If you want to get a little fancy you can crop [Tap "C" for the crop tool] the offline clip so it only shows the clip's name and then reposition it towards the bottom of the screen.)

09) Export the sequence.

Nuts. But it works.

Markers

In the timeline and in clips I use markers a lot. Mainly I use them as points to sync things up to and as sticky notes to remind me to do something to the footage at that point.

If you don't have a clip or anything in the timeline highlighted and you tap "M" you'll add a marker to the timeline. Tap "M" again to bring up it's window where you can enter in a note or set it to be a specific kind of marker. This kind of marker will stay put in the timeline.

When you put the playhead over this marker you'll see what you typed in appear in the Canvas.

But, if you have a clip highlighted and you tap "M" you'll add a marker to that clip so that marker will move relative to the clip. Like with a timeline marker tap "M" again to bring up it's window. However, unlike a timeline marker, a clip marker won't show up in the Canvas as far as I can tell.

Two handy keyboard shortcuts are Option + M to move to the previous marker and Shift + M to move to the next marker in the timeline. These work for clips too if you have a clip highlighted.

Oh, to delete a clip put the playhead on it and tap "M" then select Delete in the window that pops up.

If you want to delete ALL of the markers in your timeline tap Control + ' (it's called a grave accent mark on the so-called "tilde" ~ key).

Btw, if you want to export a list of your markers there's a free tool for it that a few people have mentioned here.