Tutorial: Introducing Libraries in Apple Final Cut Pro 10.1
In our first tutorial on the recently released FCP 10.1, we look at the new Libraries feature, which enhances project and media organization and eases the adjustment for editors transitioning from FCP 7.
Opening and Closing Libraries
Finally, I’d like to illustrate how you can open and close libraries at will in FCP 10.1, very similar to opening and closing projects in FCP 7. This is a big deal because in previous versions of Final Cut Pro X, the application would index any hard drive that contained any projects and events.
So if you had a couple of hard drives with, say, a dozen projects and events, when you loaded Final Cut Pro it would automatically populate and completely clutter your event library. This would, in fact, slow down performance if you had a bunch of events and projects.
Now you can selectively open and close libraries so that the media within them no longer appears in the Event Library. Another advantage of this development: Previously, if you wanted to eject the hard drive where some of these files resided, you had to close Final Cut, eject the hard drive, then reload Final Cut.
You no longer have to do that. If you have a library that’s connected to a hard drive and you want to eject that hard drive, you can just right-click, close the library, and eject the hard drive, without otherwise affecting the operation of FCP X.
Now, obviously you can’t close this library because Final Cut needs one library open, so you can see in Figure 6 (below) that Close Library “Sample Library” is grayed out and not available.
Figure 6. FCP X needs at least one library open at all times.
But let’s open up another library--for this example, we’ll choose the Brooke + Adam Wedding library that we saw next to Sample Library—in the Finder. To do so, click File > Open Library > Other. This doesn’t open a Finder-type of window; rather, it opens a dialog that’s essentially an index of available libraries (Figure 7, below).
Figure 7. The Open Library dialog.
In the Open Library dialog, click to select the library you want to open (in this case, Brooke + Adam Wedding), and FCP X lets you know where it’s located (as shown in Figure 7, above). Hit Choose, and the second library opens.
As you can see in Figure 8 (below), Brooke + Adam Wedding now appears in the Libraries panel (above Sample Library, which is still there). If I twirl down the disclosure to the left of the library name, we see the hierarchy.
Figure 8. Brook + Adam in the Libraries panel, along with associated clips in the Event Library. Click the image to see it at full size.
If I want to start working with Brooke + Adam Wedding and I’m done working with Sample Library, I can now right-click Sample Library, choose Close Library “Sample Library,” and it will close.
Final Cut Pro X has matured quite a bit in v10.1 and it keeps getting better. The inclusion of libraries makes it much easier to organize your media and edits. It’s a great time to try out Final Cut Pro X, especially if you’re coming from Final Cut Pro 7.
I decided to tackle Libraries first because they represent one of the big major changes to the FCP workflow. There are a lot of other exciting new features, and I look forward to covering them in future tutorials.
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