Filters not doing anything

robotriderdh

robotriderdh

Active member
Hi everyone, I fairly new to FCP and have a little problem that keeps bugging me. I've searched all of the help things and the manual on my mac, and haven't found anything useful. the problem is:

filters aren't doing anything.

The little blue box is checked (so it's 'on'), and i've attempted exporting clips i've applied filters to to see if maybe for whatever reason my monitor in FCP isn't displaying filters, and that also didn't work. please help!! thanks a lot, and i apologize if this is a total n00b question.
 
Make sure you load the filter onto the clip in the timeline...

Then, dbl click the clip to load it back into the viewer...

Then adjust your filter.

You doing that?

CaptM
 
The Cap is correct. FCP will also let you know in the Viewer which version of the clip you're working on.

Open a clip from the Browser into the Veiwer and the scrub bar is just white. Open a clip from the Timeline into the Veiwer and the scrub bar has what are supposed to look like film perferation marks.

Browser version, clean scrub bar. Timeline version, film perfs in scrub bar.
 
yes, i added (click and drag) the filter to the clip on the timeline, double clicked on it so it loads it in the viewer, and tried playing with the filter while the timeline was cued up so that the filtered clip is shoing in the monitor. no effects were shown. The filter is on the clip, is checked so that it should be applied, and for whatever reason does not show the effects of the filter.
 
i've tried loads of filters, but the simplest to use as an example would be brightness and contrast. i change both, and neither has any effect. (sorry for probably sounding quite dumb, but what do you mean by parameters? i know what the word means, but could you be more specific? thanks for your help btw)
 
The only thing I can think of is that your external monitor is not updating properly. You should see changes happen right away in the Canvas window. Is the Canvas window showing you the changes you're making to the filter?
 
i'm not using an external monitor. sorry about the confusion, when i said monitor, i meant the timeline playback screen, the one that plays back what's on the main timeline.

i'm using my macbook pro, and this monitor doesn't show the changes. it's odd. and annoying, because i need to use them!! ahh!!
 
You mean the Canvas window. The Apple Pro Training Series, Final Cut Pro 5 book is something you really should get quickly and start to learn the app.

I've never encountered your situation before. I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not a bug in FCP, I know that for sure. The only thing I am aware of that causes this is users opening the Browser version of a clip, rather than the Timeline version.

Just to verify, do this, exactly as I explain it here. Place your playhead in the middle of a clip in the Timeline. Double click that clip to then open it in the Viewer. Select a Gaussian Blur filter under the Effects tab of the Browser. Drag and drop it on the clip in the Viewer. Set the Radius of that filter in the Filter tab of the Viewer to 100. Then, in the Timeline, play that clip from the begining all the way through. What shows in the Canvas window? Any changes?

If not, I'm stumped. There's no bug or anything to cause what you describe.
 
nothing at all happens. it' quite frustrating.

i noticed a few things right now. first: the folders in the browser that contain the filters that you can apply has a little lock on them. what's confusing is that the little thing that appears to be a lock is also on the "transitions" folder, whose contents work fine.


i had another question, since it is obvious you know a whole lot about the program: how do i get the clips in the timeline to not all slide down when i change the speed of a clip before them? when i change the speed of a clip that has clips after it, the clips after are slid to the right, which is not what i want them to do. how do i negate this? thanks a lot.

do oyu have any possible explanations for my odd filter problem?
 
robotriderdh said:
nothing at all happens. it' quite frustrating.

i noticed a few things right now. first: the folders in the browser that contain the filters that you can apply has a little lock on them. what's confusing is that the little thing that appears to be a lock is also on the "transitions" folder, whose contents work fine.


i had another question, since it is obvious you know a whole lot about the program: how do i get the clips in the timeline to not all slide down when i change the speed of a clip before them? when i change the speed of a clip that has clips after it, the clips after are slid to the right, which is not what i want them to do. how do i negate this? thanks a lot.

do oyu have any possible explanations for my odd filter problem?
Click to expand...

You can't really avoid that, since your changing the time needed to show the clip. It will inevitably push (or pull) the timeline to fit the new length. There is time remapping you can do, but is something rather different than just changing the speed of the clip.
 
Ok, my bad, there ARE lock icons on the Filter folders. They're just so small, and I've been on this system for so long, I just don't notice them. That's normal.

Download FCP Rescue and trash your preferences. You are on version 5, correct? The version of FCP Rescue below will only work properly with FCP 5.0 or later. That should do the trick, I think.

http://fcprescue.andersholck.com/

As for doing slo-mo to a clip already in a timeline, here's what I do. First thing I do for EVERY project I start in FCP is make a Sequence called "Temp Work Space". It's for me to be able to quickly do stuff without messing up anything. I keep it open in the Timeline window at all times, it never gets closed.

Double click on your clip in the Timeline window to open it in the Veiwer. Switch to this other Sequence as I mentioned above. Past the clip in that Sequence in the Timeline window. Look at the Canvas window, note the timecode in the upper left. That is the total duration. Now, change the speed of the clip. Then right click it, or command click if you are using a one button mouse, from that pop-up menu choose Duration. Type in the original length of the clip before slowing it down. Now, double click it to open this modified version into the Viewer (remember the Viewer now has the original untouched version). Go back to your original Sequence, place the playhead at the begining of the original clip, and do an overwrite edit. You're replacing the original version with the modified version.

Or you can just paste the modified version on the track over the orignial. I do this a lot just to keep my original in the Sequence untouch, just in case.
 
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Ok, trashing prefs didn't work. I'm stumped. I've never seen this problem before, it's a first. Try reinstalling FCP, I guess. I don't know what else to tell you.
 
i guess i'll try that then! thanks for all of oyur help, too bad the problem didn't fix itself, that would've been great!
 
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