On set:

In a perfect world, we’d be using timecode jam-synced from a playback device. There’d probably be an operator sitting behind a laptop with some big speakers. In real-life, we were shooting on cameras without timecode-in (Sony’s A7S II with Canon Cine lenses), and had gotten our final version of the song about two hours before cameras rolled.

There is something espcially painful about sitting on-set while a PA tries to finger-scrub to the desired section of a song in iTunes. Naming each section of the song and then marking them up in MovieSlate for iOS eliminates this.

Rolling with MovieSlate gave me a flash of the song’s time-stamp on each slate. Our PA also announced which part of the song was cued on top of each take, allowing me to name clips inside Final Cut by only listening to the first few seconds of each one. Runthroughs of the song with the whole gang were only slated on the top of each take. FCPX’s keyword regions were the MVP here.

Logging:

Logging music video footage is the least glamorous part of the job, but you get the benefit of feeling like a savant when you’re on the 25th take, playing the song at 8x speed and not touching your mouse or trackpad. The temptation to skip this part of the process is strong, but editing time “lost” by not building a timeline right away gets made up quickly after the footage is organized.

The short sections of song that we slated on set are easy. Name it whatever the person with the slate called it, the shot type, and who’s in it. Check.

For the full runthroughs, keyword ranges are your best friend. Find the top of the chorus on a clip and mark it in (I). Mash play forward (L) a few times to fast-forward until you hear the end of the chorus. Mark it out (O), and then apply your keyword (⌘K or ⌃number). Repeat this for every single section of the song in every single take, marking favorites (F) on sections that stand out.

The Keyword Pane

The (⌃number) shortcut is a good one. In your keyword pane (⌘K to hide and reveal), you get to set keyboard shortcuts for oft-used keywords. When you start your project, name each one of these guys for the different sections of your song, preferably in order. Here, I have control+1 set for the intro, control+2 set for the first verse, and so on. With this in place and embedded into your brain, you‘ll be able to quickly mark your keyword ranges without typing letters or even opening the keyword pane. Play back the clip, mark in and out, hit your shortcut, repeat.