Understanding Nonlinear Editing

There are an infinite number of ways to edit your shots together in Final Cut Express HD. What gives you so much flexibility is that Final Cut Express is a nonlinear editing program. Nonlinear editing allows you to change your mind about the placement or length of a shot over and over without affecting your original captured media.

Here's how it works. When you were viewing the QuickTime movies earlier in this lesson, you were screening the entire length of a captured clip of footage. When you are editing, you may choose to use only a portion of that clip. You will mark the portion you want to use and put it together with other marked clips to form a sequence of shots or edits. This sequence of edits will develop into your edited project.

When you edit the sequence of shots together, you are not actually making any changes to your original QuickTime media files. You are only specifying what portions and in what order you wish Final Cut Express to show you the original media.

1.	In the Lesson 1 Media folder, select and play the man ab roller clip. This clip is both audio and video, but not from the same sources. A CD music track was edited to the video of the man working out.
2.	In the Lesson 2 Media folder, select and play the jimbo surfs clip. This is a QuickTime movie of edited portions of clips from your Media folder. The sequence includes only a few seconds of a specific action and does not include the material before or after that action, even though it is still available on the original captured clip.
3.	Close the Finder window.

In the next lesson, you will work with the Cooking clips in Final Cut Express and begin to organize them as you prepare to edit.