Changing Independent Clips to Affiliate Clips
If you have a sequence of independent clips, you can create new master clips for them in
the Browser. This turns each independent clip into a clip affiliated with its new master
clip. There are several reasons why you may have a sequence of independent clips:
 You imported a project from Final Cut Pro 3 or earlier. In this case, all the clips in your
project are independent.
 You imported a Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format file without master
clip information.
To create a master clip from an independent clip in a sequence:
m
Drag a clip from the sequence to the Browser to create a copy of it.
The clip in the Browser automatically becomes a master clip, and the sequence clip you
dragged becomes an affiliate of the master clip.
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Part I
Media and Project Management
To create new master clips for an entire sequence of independent clips:
1
Do one of the following to define the scope of the Create Master Clips operation:
 To create master clips corresponding to every clip in your project: Make sure nothing is
selected in the Browser or the Timeline.
 If you want to limit the creation of master clips to a specific group of clips or sequences:
Select those clips or sequences.
2
Choose Tools > Create Master Clips.
Every independent clip in your project becomes associated with a master clip in one of
two ways:
 If a master clip linked to the same media already exists: Independent clips that are
linked to the same source media on disk become affiliates of these preexisting
master clips.
 If no preexisting master clip matches an independent clip in your project: A new master
clip is created for each independent clip that doesn’t match a preexisting master clip.
All newly created master clips are placed in a new folder named Master clips for
[Project Name].
If independent clips affiliated with master clips have conflicting shared properties, you
are warned. For example, if two independent clips linked to the same source media file
on disk have different names or Master Comment 1 information, a dialog appears
giving you three choices:
 Cancel: Cancels the operation. No changes are made to clip affiliations in your project.
 Continue: Creates a new master clip for each independent clip that has different
properties, so that all existing property information is kept intact.
 Group: Creates a single master clip for all related independent clips. This may cause
some properties of the independent clips to be removed. For example, suppose one
independent clip has the name Dog and the other is named Cat. After both clips
become affiliated with a single master clip, they share the name of the master clip. If
the master clip is named Dog, both newly affiliated clips are now called Dog as well.