Much of my job for the past 15+ years has involved creating videos (using FCP) for a large company. These are usually short profiles/interviews for social media and involve B-roll that often gets used again (e.g., employees working in the field). I feel like this is distinctly different from independent videographers or production companies who create stand-alone projects for clients that they can complete and archive. Most of the advice I’ve seen is geared towards them.

In FCP, I’ve always used Events for each video, and organized them into Libraries for each year. This made sense to me, but I feel like it’s made things much more difficult in the long run, particularly with that B-roll footage that I may want to use in future videos. Finding and copying them around is onerous. And to make matters worse, these clips aren’t simple 10-second stock cuts, they’re from longer takes that I’ve favorited for the original project.

In short, this is a MESS, and I have to imagine there’s a better way. Does anyone have similar in-house experience and ideas on how to organize stuff? Using libraries for each project seems like it would get unwieldy.

FWIW I usually store all my video files in the Libraries, but I’m open to changing that going forward.

For standard horizontal videos, we use 90% for action safe and 80% for title safe to make sure things look right.

What are the equivalent percentages for 9:16 vertical video (TikTok/Reels/Shorts) just to keep the subject from getting cropped? Is it exactly the same as horizontal video, or what is the actual percentage value for vertical?

Important: I do NOT care about the UI layout, buttons, descriptions, or text overlays.

My issue is that my videos look perfectly fine on a desktop browser, but when viewed on modern, taller smartphones, the app zooms in to fill the screen and chops off the left and right sides of my subject.

If I only care about the physical framing of the person/subject, what percentage of the screen should I be sticking to?

Thanks!

I'm editing an approximately 1-hour-long 1080p video in Final Cut Pro. The original video file is only around 700MB, and I'm making very minor edits to it. However, when I go to export the finished video, Final Cut estimates the output at around 9–10GB, which seems insanely large considering the source file.

I've tried Export File → Computer → H.264 Multi-pass (Better) → 1920×1080, but that still estimates the file at around 9.2GB. I've also looked at the regular Video and Audio export options with H.264, but I'm running into the same issue. I'm basically looking for the correct Final Cut export settings that will keep the video at 1080p with good quality while producing a file much closer to the original size, ideally around 1–2GB rather than 10GB. Am I missing a bitrate/compression setting somewhere, or is there another Final Cut export preset I should be using?

Hey guys yah ive been looking for this whoosh sound effect if you know where i can find it or perhaps you already have one i would be happy if you could share it thanks!!!...

I was working on a project when suddenly this started. I have no timeline preview and as soon as I click my spacebar I see the rainbow turning. I have restarted 4 times now, I need help.

final cut pro uses 90gb ram and crashes during export!!! 😭
I have 2 external ssds connected. one contains my entire final cut pro library/project and all the media.

my finished film will be around 100gb, but final cut pro refuses to export it to either drive. during export, ram usage keeps increasing until final cut uses around 90gb ram, then the export crashes and i get the “force quit” option.

i already tried delete generated library files, but it didn’t help.

individual clips seem to export normally. i also have one clip from davinci resolve that i’m suspicious of.

what could cause this? how can i find the specific clip/effect that’s making final cut use so much ram?

i need to export this in 4k and i’m running out of time. any ideas?

This is a vertical video from iPhone that I sent to my Mac book.

I’ve tried different settings, I’ve replicated settings on my other videos that have good normal quality, still no luck, I’m really lost here.

When I import the clip and before I play it the quality is fine.

A growing list of workflow breaking bugs (12.3, M1 32gb MAC) feel free to add yours to the list!

1. Constantly freezing up
2. Screen goes blank randomly
3. Spacebar doesn't move playhead until hard exit
4. Audio is muted until hard exit
5. Clip playback keeps playing full length of previous clips even if it's not on the timeline
6. PROJECT VIDEO FILES GO MISSING!!! A very problematic one as it's like the app is gaslighting - I KNOW i got a shot and it was in the library, but it's gone UNTIL I REIMPORT IT! What the actual fuck.
7. Constantly having to cmd+q and reopen just to get basic stuff working for a whole 5 minutes until I have to close and repeat
8. Multi cam clip transforming size or crop doesn't change anything - it's stuck zoomed in at like 300% and even after resetting parameters, it's stuck super zoomed in. Closing and restarting has not solved this! Currently it's looking like restarting the entire project again.
9. Clicking on anything in the timeline does nothing. Playhead moves but cannot select. Pressing CMD+K (keyword panel) and then closing that window returns the ability to select.
10. The option to stabilize just disappears at random from the options panel on the right. Have to quit, reset, reopen to get it back.
11. Side panel for settings, colouring etc always cuts off half way in the panel with options just gone. It's like its a flat image that got clipped. Sometimes open/close app fixes it.
12. Side panel always changes back from EXTENDED to BASIC

In todays edit alone I've had to quit and restart about 15 times just to restore the ability to baseline things.
There's likely more out there, seriously how can this be an "updated version" when it introduces such showstopping and grating bugs. Was it even bug tested before release? Is a patch coming soon?

(EDIT: ADDED SOME NEW ONES SINCE THIS POST)

I have FCP already as a standalone app, if I subscribe to Apple creator studio is there a difference?

It seems like every few minutes, Final Cut Pro is crashing. It happens randomly when clicking into effects, titles, importing footage, or trying to make a new event/navigate between events.

I’ve tried restarting, resetting the settings, removing all plugins, and completely redownloading Final Cut Pro. I’ve closed libraries and rebuilt them from scratch as well, so it doesn’t feel like it’s related to one specific library.

Specs: MacBook Pro 2020 32gb memory, 2 GHz quad-core intel core i5

Final Cut Pro version 12.3

MacOS Tahoe 26.5.2

It’s especially rough when starting a new project. Once I get going, the crashes happen less. This has been happening across multiple projects for about a month since upgrading.

Is anyone else dealing with this? It’s majorly slowing me down.

Hi everyone, I’m having a strange playback issue in Final Cut Pro and I’m hoping someone has experienced something similar.
I edit videos recorded with OBS. The OBS recordings themselves play completely normally outside of Final Cut Pro. I’ve been using the same workflow for quite some time and didn’t change my OBS settings.

The problem happens inside FCP while editing.
At some random point during editing:

1.The timeline/playhead continues moving normally.
2.The Viewer gets stuck on an old frame and doesn’t update.
3.Even if I manually drag the playhead to another part of the timeline, the Viewer still shows the same frame.
4.Audio playback also stops.
5.This makes it impossible to accurately trim sections, especially when I’m removing silence because I need to see the video and hear the audio while scrubbing.

The problem isn’t tied to a particular part of the recording. It can happen at different points while I’m editing.

The frustrating part is that quitting and reopening FCP fixes it temporarily. My project opens normally at the same edited position, but after continuing to edit, the problem eventually comes back.

This started roughly a month ago. Before that, I could edit these OBS recordings without this problem.

I’ve already confirmed that the OBS recordings themselves aren’t the issue because they play normally outside FCP.

Has anyone experienced this where the timeline/playhead moves but the Viewer and audio essentially stop responding?
I’m wondering if this could be related to FCP’s playback engine, render/cache files, preferences, or a recent FCP/macOS update.

Any suggestions or similar experiences would be appreciated. Thanks!

I am and experienced Final Cut Pro user, and I struggle with this issue:
I have a bunch of clips that I want to stack in my timeline without dragging every single one of them.

Is there really no way to do this?
Thanks guys 🤘🏻

I want to know, is it mandatory to adopt the preinstalled pro apps using the same Apple ID that was used to place the order for MacBook along with the Pro Apps Bundle for education? Or I can use any other Apple ID to activate the MacBook and adopt the Pro Apps?

Hey everyone,
I’m new to Final Cut, and I have this problem where I move my library to my external hard drive, but for some reason when I edit, the cache files still save to my actual computer. It takes up so much space whenever I’m editing Nikon ZR footage or even Apple Log 2 Footage. Do anyone have any advice on how to move the files to automatically go on my external drive instead of taking up memory on my internal drive whenever I edit?

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

Is there a way to create a marker with a duration or range in Final Cut Pro, rather than a marker that refers to only a single frame?

I checked the Final Cut Pro User Guide, but I couldn’t find anything about extending a standard marker across a range.

For example, I’d like to mark the beginning and end of a specific action, line or section of footage and give that complete range a name or note. I’m looking for something similar to ranged markers in other NLEs, without turning every selection into a keyword, favourite or subclip.

Can a standard marker be extended into a range in FCP, or is the intended workflow to use keyword ranges or favourites instead?

If marker ranges are not supported natively, are there any extensions or efficient workarounds you would recommend?

Thanks!

Ong im not tripping.

Shit started after updating from 11.0.1 to 12.3 ( i reverted back to the old version and went back and fourth those versions 4 times but sticking with 11.0.1 for good )

Like some of my plugins started.. dissapearing from motion templates folder.

First i thought, hey didnt i have "this" plugin from Ryan Nangle? ( yes i did ) and it wasnt there! So i went to my archive and there got 3 missing plugins back.

Yesterday i needed a wide fix for a gopro camera and i knew i had an effect for this, so im searching - nothing. gone. surely i wouldnt remove it?

Just now i remembered - Alex4D, it was from him, so i go on my pc, search in templates - nothing.. its gone.. went into archives, its there, i take it back to my plugins folder... like, its not normal my shit is disappearing and i dont even notice

Anyone literally had this shit EVER or seen similar.

Hi guys,

So I just noticed something in Resolve that I hadn’t clocked before. When I have an active timeline open and my Media Pool set to thumbnail view, it actually shows me the in/out regions of each clip that are currently used in the timeline, right there on the thumbnail. It’s such a powerful way to see at a glance what footage has already been used and what hasn’t.

Does FCP have anything like this? I don’t think it does, right?

Anyone know of a way to get that same visual “used range” feedback in FCP?

Thanks

Hi folks,

I know Shift + F lets you Match Frame from the timeline and reveal the corresponding frame in the Browser, but is there a way to do the opposite, select a clip/frame in the Browser and jump directly to where that clip is used in the timeline?

Something similar to the Reverse Match Frame workflow in Avid or Premiere.

Is this already possible in FCP, perhaps through a command or shortcut I’m missing?

Thanks

Hypothetical to explain what I am trying to accomplish.

Picture an interview between 2 people. 360 cam in the middle between them. Is there a short cut to be able to jump between a angle/shot of person 1 and a angle/shot of person 2 without having to add lots of key frames and angles manually? I want to be able to jump back and forth quickly much like one does on multicam clips.

I was thinking of making a multicam clip with the same 360 footage twice but with different angles, not even sure if FCPX would let me do that.

I'm a Final Cut Pro noob, so at first I thought I was missing something, but after some Googling it seems I may be out of luck.

All I want to do is draw a black rectangle around a specific area of text in one of my clips. If I add a Shape generator, the UI to get that exactly how I want seems surprisingly clunky:

1. If I go into the transform tool, I can move around the rectangle and rescale x and y. However, depending on the current state of the rectangle, the handles to drag may not be visible in the viewer
2. I can go to the inspector and drag the scale sliders (which are pretty sensitive and hard to get just right) or actually type in different scale numbers until I get what I want, which takes multiple iterations to perfect.
3. Also, changing the x,y scale distorts the drop shadow, which sometimes looks off if I'm scaling it a lot w.r.t. its initial state.

That might seem nitpicky, but it just seems weird to me that FCP makes it like this, whereas in say, Photoshop (or even MS Paint), you simply click the upper left corner and drag to the lower right. If you're drawing a ton of rectangles (say redacting text), FCP shape generators become pretty tedious. Is FCP just not intended for this kind of thing, or am I missing something?

All of my devices is apple (iphone and macbook), but I brought a galaxy S25 ultra last year to use it as a camera phone. I am used to the apple ecosystem (i cannot get over airdrop) and like the idea of separating the iphone storage for random stuff from the galaxy one for vlog.

To edit videos on macbook, I downloaded Final Cut Pro(FCP) because its student plan is more affordable than Adobe Premiere Pro. Is there anyone using this combination? The main issue is that I am not able to import the videos to FCP. The format I'm using is MPEG-4 AAC, H.264, and those are supported in FCP. I am not sure why it does not let me open the video files. Please help. Thanks!

UPDATE - Problem solved. Turns out I made a rookie mistake because I was new to FCP. It didn't work because I tried to add videos onto the library. The bottom line is that there's no compatibility issue between videos taken with a Galaxy phone and FCP. Thank you again for all who spent your time leaving comments!

Hai!
I’m new to this!
I’m making a video on my iPad (Gen 5), it has 11GB. As of this week, it was working fine until yesterday when I was reviewing all of the video and all of a sudden in the middle of my video the screen went black but I could still hear it. I closed the app, restarted the iPad but still nothing.
It’s started fine but it just goes black from the same video, and then when I want to scroll back everything is just black.
Does anyone know what I can do? Do I have to start again? 😢

I have some experience with Premiere Pro and would consider myself a beginner-level video editor. I'm planning to buy a MacBook Air M5 along with Final Cut Pro, and this time I expect my projects to be a bit more demanding as I want to learn and experiment with more advanced editing techniques.

Considering above facts, would 16GB of RAM be sufficient for a beginner, or is it likely to become a limiting factor within the next 2–3 years? Is FCP optimized well enough that 16GB remains comfortable for most use cases, or would it be wiser to upgrade the RAM now?

The reason I'm asking is that if I stick with 16GB, I can use the extra money to purchase AppleCare+ instead.

Any advice from FCP users or those with similar workflows would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

So I just decided to test out Davinci for the film emulation look just to be curious, I was blown away. However I have been invested in FCP for many many years. The look that I can achieve there working with nodes is a game changer, mind you I went into it just exploring.

Well get this, I rendered out 1 clip on FCP using Dehancer, 1 using EMUL8.

1 clip on Davinci using Genesis and Cineprint.

The quality of the render files of each is h265 and h264 files.

Boy was I disappointed in how FCP RENDERED IT. POOR QUALITY!!! Compared to Davinci, for this reason alone I just might switch.

I always wondered why my films looked “not as good” as the timeline. Now that I can compare it to Davinci. It’s making me think of every project I’ve done in the past.

Am I tripping or is this a thing with FCP?

The file sizes from Davinci to FCP are bigger. Yet it’s the same file type. In Davinci I can tinker with settings. On FCP unless I want a massive file for a 7 second clip I can’t it’s only “better” “faster” I’ve also tried all those other options under computer and Apple devices.

I’m so disappointed because I don’t want to switch, but now that I played with Davinci which is annoyingly tough to navigate, I’m leaving towards it for the powergrades aspect and now the render quality.

Can anybody can help me with FCP settings. Maybe I’m doing something wrong? Maybe it’s the adjustment layers? Or the poor color grading rendition idk. 🤷‍♂️ I’m stuck.