Lesson Files | FCP4 Book Files > Lessons > Lesson 5 Project |
Media | Sahara folder; Titanic folder; Music folder |
Time | This lesson takes approximately 60 minutes to complete. |
Goals | Trim one edit point of a clip Trim an edit point by dragging Trim clips in the V2 track Trim using the Ripple tool Extend an edit point Divide a clip Trim clips in the Viewer |
Building a sequence is only the first step. Once you see how all the clips in the sequence fit together, you will want to refine some of your edit points. There are two ways to approach this. You can trim one edit point at a time, making a clip longer or shorter. This may affect the length of the sequence as a whole. Or you can trim two edit points at the same time, one compensating in length for the other. This will not change the length of the sequence. In this lesson, you will work with different ways to trim just one edit point at a time to fine tune the length or timing of your sequence.
To get started in Lesson 5, you will launch Final Cut Pro and then open the project for this lesson.
Choose File > Open, or press Cmd-O. Choose the Lesson 5 Project file from the Lessons folder on your hard drive.
Close any other projects that may be open from a previous session by Ctrl-clicking their name tabs in the Browser and selecting Close Tab from the contextual menu.
In the Timeline, play the Trimming Finished sequence.
This is another version of the Titanic sound bites you worked with in the previous lesson. This is the sequence you will create in the first few exercises.
In the Browser, create a new sequence and name it Trimming. Double-click it to open it in the Timeline.
This is where you will build the new sequence and trim the clips.
Leave the Trimming Finished sequence open in the Timeline for reference.
Trimming an edit point is a way of changing your mind about where you want a clip to start or stop after you've placed it in the Timeline. There are different approaches to trimming. You can spend time viewing the clip in the Viewer and making adjustments to your edit points before editing it to the sequence. Or you can edit longer clips to the sequence and trim the edit points there.
When you trim an edit point, you are lengthening or shortening the clip either at the head or the tail. Lengthening or shortening a clip in the Timeline may affect the length of the entire sequence.
Consider the In point at the head of the clip:
Trim it to the left, and the clip will begin on an earlier frame. The clip will be longer.
Trim it to the right, and the clip will begin on a later frame. The clip will be shorter.
Consider the Out point at the tail of the clip:
Trim it to the left, and the clip will end on an earlier frame. The clip will be shorter.
Trim it to the right, and the clip will end on a later frame. The clip will be longer.
Remember that the maximum amount you can trim in an outer direction (head or tail) to lengthen a clip depends on how much material is available in the original media file. Even though you are seeing only the marked portion in the Timeline, you have access to all the frames from the original media file. In this lesson, you will work with different ways to trim an edit point.
Dragging edit points is a direct and easy way to resize a clip in the Timeline. It works much like dragging a whole clip, but when you drag an edit point, the clip itself remains stationary; just the In or Out point moves, and the length of the clip is changed.
In this exercise, you will edit a clip to the Timeline, and drag an edit point to trim the clip. To shorten this clip, you will trim inward toward the center of the clip first from the head and then from the tail.
In the Browser, click the triangle to expand the Titanic SOTs bin.
Drag the anatole sot clip from the Browser directly to the Trimming sequence and release the clip as an Overwrite edit at the head of the Timeline. Play the clip.
In the Timeline, play the clip from the beginning again and park the playhead before Al brings the radio mic up to his mouth to speak.
This is where you want the new In point to be.
Click the current In point of the clip to select it.
The In point becomes selected on all tracks because the video and audio portions of this clip are linked together. This is indicated by the line under the clip name.
Move the pointer to the edit point. When the pointer changes to a resize tool, click the edit point and drag right toward the playhead location. As you drag, look at the trim amount and the new clip duration as they are being updated in the information box.
As you drag, all linked tracks are dragged together.
Continue to drag the In point to the right until it snaps to the playhead, then release the mouse. Play the clip to see the new edit point.
TIP
If snapping is off, toggle it on by pressing N. You can toggle snapping off and on even as you drag the mouse.
To trim the Out point, play the clip from the head and park the playhead after Al's words have been repeated as an echo and his hand comes back up to his face.
Click and hold the current Out point.
In the Canvas, an end-of-clip filmstrip appears over the last frame of the clip. You cannot make this clip longer by trimming to the right.
Drag the Out point to the left until it snaps to the playhead, and then play the clip.
Now click in the center of the clip and drag the whole clip to the head of the sequence.
When you want to trim clips that are between other clips in the sequence, the dragging mechanics change slightly. When two clips are side by side, Final Cut Pro won't allow you to drag the edit point of one clip into its neighboring clip. You can drag away from the neighboring clip but not into it.
When you trim or shorten a clip by dragging it away from a neighboring clip, it will leave a gap in the sequence. If you leave the gap, the sequence length will be the same as it was before you trimmed the clip. If you delete the gap, the sequence length is changed. You delete gaps just as you did in the previous lesson.
In the Browser, find the cam rolling sot clip and drag it into the Timeline following the anatole sot clip as an Overwrite edit.
To trim the Out point, play the clip and park the playhead after Al finishes saying, “The video camera is rolling,” before the echo begins.
Drag the Out point left until it snaps to the playhead position.
Play this clip from the head and park the playhead just after Al says, “Roger that,” and before he says, “Roger,” again. Because Al is speaking just before this point, you may have to use the left and right arrow keys or jog wheel to finesse the playhead position.
Now drag the In point right until it snaps to the playhead.
Delete this gap by selecting it and pressing Delete.
When you delete the gap, the following clip is pulled up the duration of the gap. As mentioned in Lesson 4, this is called ripple deleting because deleting the gap ripples the location of the following clip.
Now try dragging the In point of the cam rolling sot clip left to make it longer.
Nothing happens because you cannot drag a clip into a neighboring clip to make it longer without a special trim tool that you will use in a later exercise.
Play the trimmed clips in the sequence.
Dragging an edit point is an easy approach to trimming a clip except for the fact that you can't lengthen a clip when it sits next to another clip. But there is a way around this problem. It involves placing a clip onto the V2 track where, with no neighbors, it has the freedom to be trimmed in either direction.
From the Cutaways bin in the Browser, open the diver directs sub clip into the Viewer and play it.
This clip has audio, but you will use just the video portion as a cutaway to cover the jump cut between the first two clips. But this time, you will edit the cutaway to the V2 video track.
To target just the V2 track in the Timeline, click the V2 Destination control.
NOTE
If you have only one video track in your Timeline, Ctrl-click next to the V1 Destination control and select Add Track from the contextual menu. Then target the new V2 track.
To make sure you do not edit the audio, click the A1 and A2 Destination controls to disconnect the source tracks from their targets.
Move the playhead to the first clip just after Al finishes saying, “Go ahead,” and edit the full length of the diver directs sub clip as an Overwrite edit at this location. Play from the beginning of the sequence.
When video clips are stacked on top of each other, the clip on the highest track takes precedence and will be seen. In this sequence, the first clip will be seen from the beginning of the sequence to the point where the cutaway appears in the V2 track. At that point, the only video you see will be the video clip on the V2 track until it stops. When the V2 clip ends, whatever video is beneath it on the V1 track will be seen.
To trim the diver directs sub clip, park the playhead where the diver begins to move his arm, then drag the In point to that location.
Now park the playhead where the diver puts his hand down, and drag the Out point left to that location.
Click the center of the diver directs sub clip and drag the entire clip left so that its Out point lines up with the cam rolling sot clip's Out point. Play the sequence so far.
With the cutaway on a separate track, you can move the clip to reposition it, trim it by dragging its edit points, or even turn the track visibility off to see what the sequence looks like without it.
Press Cmd-S to save your work.
Open the right ocean sot clip into the Viewer and make sure the v1, a1, and a2 Source controls are patched to the V1, A1, and A2 destination tracks. Edit this clip as an Overwrite edit following the cam rolling sot clip.
In the right ocean sot clip, drag the In point to trim this clip tight to the man speaking on camera. Then drag the entire clip left next to the cam rolling sot clip.
By dragging from the Browser or editing from the Viewer, edit the many divers and diver kneels clips to the V2 track as cutaways over the right ocean sot clip.
Trim each clip slightly. Position many divers after the man says, “…from '87. Over.” Move the playhead 12 seconds from the head of many divers and place diver kneels at this position.
Press Cmd-S to save your project.
Dragging edit points is one way to trim in the Timeline. You can also drag an edit point and ripple the remaining edits in the sequence at the same time without having to delete a gap or use an additional track. You do this with the Ripple tool. The Ripple tool is the fourth tool in the Tool palette.
When you use the Ripple tool to trim an edit point, you can drag an In or Out point of one clip into its neighboring clip. All the clips that follow are automatically pushed down or pulled up the length of the trim.
Before you begin using the Ripple tool, you will edit two clips into the sequence.
Use the up or down arrow to move the playhead to the edit point between the cam rolling sot and right ocean sot clips.
You will first insert one clip here, and then another one following it.
From the Titanic SOTs bin in the Browser, open the birthday sot clip.
To place this clip on the same tracks as the other sot clips, make sure the v1, a1, and a2 Source controls are patched to the V1, A1, and A2 Destination controls in the Timeline.
Click the Insert edit button, or drag the clip to the Insert section of the Canvas Edit Overlay.
All the clips in the sequence, including the cutaways, are pushed down the length of the inserted clip.
Open the debris vis bad sot clip and mark an Out point at 8:13:08;17. Insert this clip after the birthday sot clip in the sequence.
Using the Ripple tool, like dragging an edit point, adjusts either the head or tail of a clip in a sequence in either a forward or backward direction, making the clip longer or shorter. Any change you make with the Ripple tool will cause a change in the overall length of the sequence.
Play the birthday sot clip and park the playhead after Al finishes speaking. Then press Option-+ to zoom into that location.
In the Tool palette, click and hold the fourth tool. Slide over and select the Ripple tool, which looks like a single roller, and let go. You can also press RR as the keyboard shortcut to select this tool.
Don't click or drag but just move your pointer over the middle of the birthday sot clip.
The Ripple tool has an X on it, indicating that the tool can't be applied to this area. You can only use the Ripple tool on an edit point.
Move the tool toward the clip's Out point.
When the Ripple tool gets close to the Out point, the X disappears, and the tail of the Ripple icon points toward the inside of the clip you will be trimming.
Click the inside edge of the Out point.
When the Out point is correctly selected, just the Out point of this clip is highlighted.
Now drag this edit point left until it snaps to the playhead position and let go.
As you drag with the Ripple tool, an information box appears with just the trim amount. There is no gap left over and all the clips in the sequence are pulled up by the amount of the trim.
To make the debris vis bad sot clip longer, drag the Out point to the right as far as it will go.
When you reach the end of the original source clip's limits, a note will appear in the information box.
In the Canvas, you see the end of clip display over the frame you are trimming on the left. In the right Canvas frame, you see the first frame of the clip that follows it in the sequence.
When you have dragged as far right as you can go, release the mouse.
The following clip is pushed down the length of the trim.
To trim the Out point of this clip back to 8:13:13;25, its source timecode, drag the Out point left and look at the left Canvas frame until you see that number appear in the lower portion of the image.
To lengthen the cam rolling sot clip, drag its Out point as far right as possible and note the duration of the trim before you let go.
Sometimes you may have a fixed trim amount in mind. It could be a few frames, or 10, or 30. Just as you typed a move duration in the Timeline to move a clip, you can also type a trim amount to trim a clip. There are also a few keyboard shortcuts you can use to trim an edit point.
To remove those few seconds from the cam rolling sot clip you just added, click the inner edge of that clip's Out point.
Type –4.00, or –4. (minus 4 followed by a period). Depending on how much you trimmed, you may have to adjust by a few more frames to restore the clip to its previous duration.
A Ripple information box appears in the center of the Timeline with the amount of the trim.
Press Return to enter that trim amount.
The selected Out point is trimmed backward by that amount, and no gap is created.
To ripple using a keyboard shortcut, click inside the In point of the birthday sot clip. Play this clip.
Al repeats what he says at the beginning of the clip. To trim the first “I can't…” out of the clip, you will want to move the In point later by a few frames.
To move the In point later, press the ] (right bracket) key.
The edit point is moved forward one frame, and the following clips in the sequence are pulled up by one frame.
To trim by a slightly larger amount, press Shift-] (right bracket).
The In point jumps a default number of frames.
NOTE
Using Shift with a bracket key applies a Multi-Frame Trim Size to the trim. This amount can be changed in the General tab of the User Preferences window and can be set from 1 frame to 99 frames in length.
If necessary, press the left or right bracket key a few times to fine tune the edit point.
Any change you make using these keyboard shortcuts ripples the following clips in the sequence. With such minor adjustments, it may be difficult to see the clips shifting, but they are.
NOTE
You can see the thumbnail image in the Timeline clip update every time you change the In point.
Press A to restore the default Selection tool.
Another way to trim a clip is to simply cut off the portion of the clip in the Timeline you don't want to use. This can be done with the Razor Blade tool. The Razor Blade tool will literally slice through all the tracks associated with a clip and make a separate clip out of that portion. You can then select and delete the portion you no longer want. In this exercise, you will use the Razor Blade tool to separate unwanted material from the middle portion of a clip that you can then delete.
Play the debris vis bad sot clip and park the playhead after the man says, “That's out here in the debris field.”
Select the Razor Blade tool in the Tool palette, and lock the V2 track so it will not be affected during this exercise.
With the pointer inside the clip area in the Timeline, move the Razor Blade tool toward the playhead until it snaps.
Click the Razor Blade on the playhead in any of this clip's tracks.
NOTE
When a clip's tracks are linked together, you can click in any one of the tracks with the Razor Blade tool.
Although the V2 clip was not affected at all, a new edit point was created where you clicked the Razor Blade tool and the original clip is now divided into two separate clips. Red through edit indicators appear on each track to indicate that this material currently plays continuously from the first clip to the next.
NOTE
The through edit indicators in the Timeline can be toggled off or on by control-clicking the Timeline Track Height control next to the Track Height columns, and selecting Show Through Edits.
Press A to return to the default Selection tool, and then select the second half of the debris vis bad sot clip.
To delete this portion of the clip and pull the remaining sequence clips up by that clip's duration, press Shift-Delete.
Now play the right ocean sot clip.
After the first man stops speaking, there is a long section of radio noise that you can delete from this clip.
Park the playhead after the man stops talking and the radio noise begins.
Press B to select the Razor Blade tool and click on the clip at the playhead location.
Move the playhead to just before the man on the radio responds and click on the clip at this location with the Razor Blade tool.
There are now three right ocean sot clips in the Timeline. The middle clip is the section you do not want in the sequence.
Press A to return to the default Selection tool, and then select the middle right ocean sot clip. Press Shift-Delete to remove this clip and pull the following clip up. Play the two clips.
The middle section is removed and the first clip plays into the second.
Press Cmd-S to save the project, and then unlock the V2 track.
You have used the Viewer to screen and mark your clips before editing them into the Timeline. But you can also use the Viewer to make adjustments to clips already in the Timeline. To trim a clip in the Viewer, you can drag edit points in the scrubber bar or you can apply the Ripple tool to an edit point. Let's begin by trimming a clip in the Viewer using the Selection tool to drag an edit point.
With the default Selection tool, double-click the diver kneels clip in the V2 track of the Timeline. You can also select the clip and press Return to open it.
The clip opens in the Viewer, and the In and Out points used for this clip in the sequence appear in the scrubber bar. The scrubber bar now displays two lines of dots. This is the visual indication that you are working with a clip that has already been edited into the Timeline.
Play the clip and stop the playhead just before the big burst of air bubbles comes out of the air tank.
Move the pointer over the In point in the scrubber bar and look for the pointer to change to the resize arrow you saw when you dragged the edit point in the Timeline.
Drag the In point of this clip to the right to the playhead location.
In the Timeline, the clip is trimmed the same amount.
In the Timeline, double-click the anatole sot clip to open it into the Viewer. Play the clip and park the playhead just after Al stops talking.
Select the Ripple tool in the Tool palette, or press RR.
Move the pointer into the Viewer scrubber bar and then over the Out point.
The cursor changes to the Ripple tool when it's over an edit point.
With the Ripple tool, drag the Out point to the left to shorten the clip.
As you drag, all the remaining clips in the Timeline are pulled up or pushed back to cover the length of the trim.
Another way to trim a clip is to extend a selected edit point to a new location either backward or forward. Extending an edit always works in conjunction with the playhead location and the default arrow Selection tool. The selected edit point snaps to the location of the playhead in the sequence. As with all trim options, extending an edit can make a clip longer or shorter.
From the Browser, open the Extending sequence and play it.
In the right ocean sot clip, park the playhead after the man on the radio mic says, “Ralph, this is Emory,” and before he lifts his thumb off the mic.
You will lengthen the many divers clip by extending its In point back to this location.
Select the many divers In point on the V2 track.
Both sides of the edit point are selected.
Press E, or choose Sequence > Extend Edit.
The In point is moved backward to the playhead location.
Play from the middle of the right ocean sot clip and park the playhead after the man offscreen says, “…I believe, the debris field.”
Select the In point of the cam stirs debris clip and press E to shorten this clip to the playhead location.
You can also extend the edit points of more than one clip on different tracks simultaneously. You can even extend the edit points in different directions from each other, moving one forward to the playhead location and one backward to the playhead location.
Move the playhead to 1:00:35;05 in the Timeline.
You will extend the right ocean sot clip out to this location, and shorten the music track to this location at the same time.
Select the Out point of the right ocean sot clip. Cmd-click the Out point of the MX 54-Track 63.aif music clip to add it to the selection.
Press Cmd-S to save the project.
From the Browser, open the Sahara Storyboard sequence.
This is the storyboard sequence that was created in the previous lesson.
Lock the A1 and A2 tracks so they will not be affected by the trims.
Using any of the trim methods from this lesson, continue to trim the clips in the V1 track until the V1 track matches the length of the music track.
Press Cmd-S to save your project.
How to drag a clip's edit point to trim
How to edit to the V2 track
How to use the Ripple tool
How to ripple using numbers and shortcuts
How to extend an edit point
How to divide a clip with the Razor Blade tool
How to edit a clip in the Viewer