I'm doing an edit of about 60 layered clips and was wondering if there is a way to have added clips come in from behind (rather than in front) the existing clips, with out having to drag them up & down in the timeline?

Also, Is there a way to add the clips without audio?

Thanks in advance.

Working with FC5 at the moment.

Other than the ability to nest sequences where needed to change layering, FCP is very much a Top Down layers program, exactly as you've explained.

Hey Chris, I don't know if this will help in your particular situation but have you thought about a Multiclip edit? It's the only way I can think of to get around the top to bottom nature of the layers in FCP.

From Final Cut Pro 6 & 7 User Manuals:
Multiclips can have a maximum of 128 angles, but only the first 16 can be played back in real time.
Not sure how it works in FCP5 or if it's even feasible for your project, just throwing out ideas.

Thanks guy's.
Though I'm not a full time editor, I've been working with FC for over 8 years, & it usually seems that more often than not, the program has better ways of accomplishing certain tasks than my common approach.

I'd hoped that there would be command similar to other multi layered programs of "send to back" or some other method. Apparently not (?), but I will look into the multiclips (thanks for that).

It looks like my workflow will be like this...
I'll move this 20 sec clip to a new sequence (as I don't want to have 60 layers in my project timeline anyway), Lay out markers in the timeline to the first 5 clips that the sequence builds off of - Move the first 5 clips up to the 60th layer - resize and place the remaining clips in order from top to bottom (the markers should keep the timing fairly close) - Lock all the video layers and delete the audio all at once - polish up the edits/timing - make a self contained file & bring that back into the project.

Sound like the best solution?

I'll move this 20 sec clip to a new sequence (as I don't want to have 60 layers in my project timeline anyway), Lay out markers in the timeline to the first 5 clips that the sequence builds off of - Move the first 5 clips up to the 60th layer - resize and place the remaining clips in order from top to bottom (the markers should keep the timing fairly close) - Lock all the video layers and delete the audio all at once - polish up the edits/timing - make a self contained file & bring that back into the project.

Sound like the best solution?

You could use Nested Sequences instead of exporting and reimporting the file - that would add editability.

Thanks Shaun

If you just want to add a clip "BEHIND" other clips you can select the track that you want it on -say track 5 - and control click and select add track. this opens up a "NEW" track and bumps all other tracks up. you can then drag your clip into track 5 and it will show behind all tracks 6 and above.
This may be easier than highlighting all clips and dragging them up one layer... if that was how you did it previously.
hope it helps....

Also I don't know if there is a better way to not add the audio but what I do is lock the audio tracks and then drag the video down to a track that has locked audio . It cannot place the audio so it only sets down the video track with a little red warning indicating the audio is no longer synced with it. I ignore that since that was my intention all along.
once again I am with you on this and am certain others have a better way of doing it but that is how I end up keeping only audio tracks I want and not 60 plus tracks that I later delete.

Good lord... Darrick is right, of course. Funny, because I have done that at LEAST 5 times in the past 48 hours and forgot ALL about it...

If you just want to add a clip "BEHIND" other clips you can select the track that you want it on -say track 5 - and control click and select add track. this opens up a "NEW" track and bumps all other tracks up. you can then drag your clip into track 5 and it will show behind all tracks 6 and above.
This may be easier than highlighting all clips and dragging them up one layer... if that was how you did it previously.
hope it helps....

Also I don't know if there is a better way to not add the audio but what I do is lock the audio tracks and then drag the video down to a track that has locked audio . It cannot place the audio so it only sets down the video track with a little red warning indicating the audio is no longer synced with it. I ignore that since that was my intention all along.
once again I am with you on this and am certain others have a better way of doing it but that is how I end up keeping only audio tracks I want and not 60 plus tracks that I later delete.

Thanks Darrick, Very helpful.
I should have thought about locking all the audio tracks up front. I'm about half way done with it now and am actually putting it off for a few days as my G5 is sooooo slow with all the tracks and I'm resigned to getting a refurb 08/09 if the 2010's aren't announced on Tuesday. Locking out the audio helped a bit with speed but no enough.

Chris: the RUMOUR on the new Mac Pros from the site I "trust" the most is Mac Pros shipping in June. Of course, this is rumour and hearsay but historically they have been fairly accurate.

I read that too, but the wording was a little wonky. It said the monitors in June & then something like the MP will also be refreshed by June, or something like that. Which is one of the reasons I'm letting one more Tuesday pass.

Some think it might be this Tuesday because Nvidia is launching their new cards tonight & that Apple might be waiting on these cards.