Pasting Clips over Clips


In addition to pasting a whole clip into your movie, which inserts it and pushes aside other footage, you can also replace a section of an existing clip (or clips). This is an easy way to show different visuals while retaining a clip's original audio, such as when someone is narrating a flashback (Figure 8.34). You can choose to make the sound of both clips editable or not.

Figure 8.34. Using the Paste Over feature, you can add a flashback (middle) without interrupting the audio of your subject speaking.


To set the audio preference:

1.

Open iMovie's Preferences.

2.

To be able to edit the audio of the original video clip, enable the Extract audio when using "Paste Over at Playhead" option, if it's not already active (Figure 8.35). If you want to substitute in the audio of the pasted clip, disable Extract audio in paste over. Close the Preferences window.

Figure 8.35. To make sure the original clip's audio plays, enable the Extract audio when using "Paste Over at Playhead" option in iMovie's preferences.


To paste a clip over another clip:

1.

Select some footage or a clip, and cut or copy it.

2.

Position the Playhead where you want the pasted footage to begin, or select a range of frames to be replaced.

3.

Choose Paste Over at Playhead from the Advanced menu, or press Command-Shift-V.

The pasted clip appears directly on top of the clip that was there before, with its sound clipcolored purpleadded to the first audio track (Figure 8.36). The audio clip actually belongs to the original clip, and is what you hear when you play the sequence. The clip you inserted still has its soundtrack embedded, and you can hear the volume from each. However, you can now edit the audio levels and control which clip's sound is louder or softer (see Chapter 10).

Figure 8.36. The original clip's audio is extracted so you can edit it independently of the pasted-over clip.


Tips

  • Selecting a range of frames in the existing clip and then using the Paste Over at Playhead command can create a number of interesting results.

    • If the number of frames in both clips matches exactly, the footage is added with no worries, mate.

    • If the selection is longer than the Clipboard footage, a gap is added to make up the difference (Figure 8.37).

      Figure 8.37. iMovie automatically adds black frames if the Clipboard contents are shorter than the selection.

    • If the selection is shorter than the footage from the Clipboard, iMovie pastes only as much footage as will fit into the selection (Figure 8.38).

      Figure 8.38. If you've made a selection that's shorter than the contents of the Clipboard, iMovie only pastes over as much as will fit.

  • When you use the paste-over technique, you're actually overwriting the existing footage (versus overlaying something such as a title; see Chapter 12). This means that if you delete the pasted-over clip, the existing footage is hidden. You can recover the "lost" footage by Direct Trimming, using Undo, or by completely restoring the clip media (explained at the end of this chapter).

  • If you're looking for a Robert Altmanesque audio effect where the audio from both clips plays simultaneously, use the Paste Over at Playhead command. Click the pasted clip (which retains its embedded audio track if the Extract audio in paste over option is enabled), then edit its volume (see Chapter 10).





iMovie HD 6 & iDVD 6 for Mac OS X (Visual QuickStart Guide Series)
iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6 for Mac OS X
ISBN: 0321423275
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 197
Authors: Jeff Carlson

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