Manipulating Clips in the Timeline


There will be times during editing when you will simply want to reach in, grab a clip, and do something with it. But before you start editing a lot of clips in the Timeline, let's take another moment to work with a single clip, to get a feel for how to select it, move it, copy and paste it, and even delete it from the Timeline.

Selecting and Deselecting a Clip

As you have seen, you can make edits quite easily by marking your clips and dragging them to the Edit Overlay or using a keyboard shortcut and never touching the Timeline. The first step to drag-and-drop editing is learning how to select and deselect a clip. As with all Apple applications, clicking an icon once selects it; clicking twice opens it. For this exercise, you will select a clip by just clicking once.

1.

In the Browser, display the contents of the Clips bin, and then double-click the horseshoe island clip to open it in the Viewer. This clip has already been marked. To view the marked area, click the Play In to Out button.

2.

In the Timeline, move the playhead toward the middle of the empty sequence.

3.

To edit the horseshoe island clip into the sequence at this location, use the Overwrite shortcut, F10.

Tip

If the clip appears too short or too long to work with in the Timeline, press Option-+ (plus) to magnify the view and make the clip appear longer or press Option- (minus) to make it appear shorter.

4.

Single-click the horseshoe island clip in the Timeline.

The clip becomes brown to indicate that it is the selected clip.

5.

To deselect it, click in the gray space above the clip. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for practice.

6.

Hover the mouse pointer over the very end of the clip. When the pointer changes to the left-right resize arrow, click once.

You have selected the Out point of this clip.

7.

To select the clip itself and not the edit point, click in the middle away from the ends of the clip.

8.

To deselect the clip, click in the empty gray space above it. You can also choose Edit > Deselect All, or use the keyboard shortcut, Shift-Cmd-A.

Dragging Clips

Clips can be dragged left or right and up or down in the Timeline. Dragging clips left or right repositions them in the sequence. Dragging a video clip up or an audio clip down will automatically create an additional track for that clip. For now, let's concentrate on just moving the clip left and right to reposition it in the Timeline.

1.

Click the horseshoe island clip again to select it.

When you move the mouse through the clip, the pointer changes to a Move cursor.

2.

Click and drag the horseshoe island clip to the right, but don't release the mouse.

An information box appears that displays a plus sign and a number. This is how far in time you have moved the clip forward from its original position.

3.

Release the mouse.

Note

Wherever you let go of the clip, this is the clip's new position, and any movement from that point will be displayed as a new measurement in the information box.

4.

Now drag the clip to the left past its original location.

A minus or plus sign appears to indicate how far you have moved from that position.

5.

Drag the clip to the right a few seconds and let go. Then drag to the left a few seconds and let go.

6.

Position the playhead on the left and away from the clip, but not at the beginning of the sequence.

7.

Drag the clip toward the playhead. When you get close, let the clip snap to the playhead.

8.

Now drag the clip to the beginning or head of the sequence and release it.

Copying and Pasting Clips

You may have edited a beautiful shot into your sequence and now want to use that as both the opening and closing shots. Since you already marked and edited this clip to your desired length, and since it's already in the Timeline, copying and pasting it wherever you want to use it is very easy.

Copying and pasting in Final Cut Express is similar to copying and pasting in a word-processing program. Let's say you want to copy and paste a word. First you select it. Next you copy it. Then you click at the point where you want to paste it, and you paste the word. In Final Cut Express, you even use the same Apple shortcut commands for copy and paste: Cmd-C and Cmd-V.

1.

Open the island twirl clip in the Viewer.

2.

In the Timeline, move the playhead past the end of the first clip a second or two, and press F10.

3.

Select the new clip and choose Edit > Copy, or press Cmd-C.

Note

The copy of the clip is stored in your computer's Clipboard, just as the word you copy in a document would be.

4.

With the playhead still at the end of the island twirl clip, choose Edit > Paste from the menu, or press Cmd-V.

A copy of the island twirl clip is placed at the playhead position in the Timeline, and the playhead moves to the end of that new clip.

5.

With the playhead at its current position at the end of the second island twirl clip, press Cmd-V again, and then one more time.

Note

You can keep pasting the clip again and again because it remains in the Clipboard until something else replaces it.

6.

Press Cmd-Z to undo the most recent pasting.

The number of times you can undo an action can be set in the User Preferences window.

7.

In the main menu, choose Final Cut Express HD > User Preferences. In the General tab, change the number in the Levels of Undo box to 15 and click OK.

Note

Although you can have up to 32 levels of Undo, the higher the number, the more computer memory is required.

8.

In the Timeline, drag the clip on the far right over a few seconds and let go.

9.

Drag it back to its original position and let it snap to the clip.

Note

Just before you let go, note that the clips display triangular snapping indicators around the edit point where the two clips meet.

Viewing Canvas Edit Frames

The Canvas window usually displays whatever frame the playhead is parked on or playing over in the Timeline. But when you drag a clip left or right in the Timeline, the Canvas window displays two small edit frames in a two-up display.

The two edit frames, or windows, in the Canvas display the frames adjacent to or bordering the current clip in the Timeline. The left window displays the frame in the sequence immediately in front of or before the clip you are dragging. The right window displays the first frame in the sequence after the clip you are dragging. If there are no clips on one or both sides of the selected clip, the windows remain black.

1.

Make sure the playhead is at the end of the last island twirl clip in the Timeline.

2.

Open the boy surf casts clip and press F10 to place it in the sequence at the end of the last island twirl clip.

3.

Open the rockscape surf clip and place it at the end of the sequence.

Note

If you can't see all your clips at this point, select the Timeline and press Shift-Z to bring the sequence into full view.

4.

Start dragging the first clip, horseshoe island.

The two-up display appears in the Canvas window. If there are no clips on either side of the horseshoe island clip, both frames will be black.

5.

Now snap the current clip to the first island twirl clip, but don't release the mouse.

There are no clips to the left of the clip you are dragging, so the left edit frame is black. But the right frame displays the next frame after the horseshoe island clip, which is the first frame of the island twirl clip.

Tip

If you don't see an image in the right edit frame as you drag, move the pointer closer to the clip's edit point on the right.

6.

Drag the horseshoe island clip farther to the right in the sequence until it covers parts of the third island twirl clip and the boy surf casts clip. Drag left and right in this area, but don't release the mouse.

In the Canvas, you see the two frames that will border this clip if you release this clip at this location.

7.

Now drag the horseshoe island clip into the last clip, rockscape surf, but don't release the mouse.

The boy surf casts clip appears in the left Canvas edit frame because now it's on the left side of the clip. The frames in the Canvas continue to update as you drag.

8.

Drag the horseshoe island clip left back to the head of the Timeline and release.

Moving a Clip by Duration

If you know how far you want to move a clip in the Timeline, you can type a specific amount of time, or duration, to move it earlier or later in the sequence.

1.

If it's not already there, drag the playhead to the end of the sequence.

2.

Select the last clip in the Timeline, rockscape surf.

3.

Type the number 2 followed by a period (2.) to represent 2 seconds.

In the middle of the Timeline above the video clips, a Move box automatically appears to indicate the amount you typed. Like all things numerical, it assumes a positive direction unless you type a minus () sign before the number.

4.

Press Return to execute the move.

The clip moves forward in the Timeline two seconds.

5.

Now type 1. to move the clip backward in the Timeline one second.

The Move box appears in the same place in the Timeline no matter where the clip you're moving is located.

6.

Type 2. and then press Return to try to move the clip back another two seconds.

The clip moves back up against the last clip in the sequence, but a note appears in the center of the Timeline indicating that there is a clip collision on V1. This type of move command will not allow you to move a clip into an adjacent clip.

Selecting and Moving Multiple Clips

You can also select and move a group of clips together in the Timeline. There are several ways you can select a group of clips. You can use a menu option to select all the clips in the sequence, you can use a keyboard shortcut and select the clips you want, or you can drag a marquee around a group of clips. Dragging a marquee in the Timeline is the same Apple concept as dragging a marquee, or rectangular outline, around items on your Desktop.

In the following exercise you will practice these methods. There are additional selection tools in the Tool palette, which you will explore in another lesson.

1.

In the Timeline, select all the clips by choosing Edit > Select All from the main menu. The shortcut for Select All is Cmd-A.

Note

The Cmd-A shortcut is used in many other Macintosh applications as a way to select all of something. For example, Cmd-A selects all the text in a document or all the contents of a folder.

2.

With all the clips selected, click any one of the selected clips and drag right a few seconds, then release the clips.

3.

Deselect the clips by clicking in the gray space above the clips in the sequence.

4.

To drag a marquee around the last two clips, click in the gray space above the boy surf casts clip and drag down and to the right into the rockscape surf clip. When they are both selected, let go.

As you drag the marquee, each clip your pointer tip touches is selected.

5.

Type 2. in the Timeline and press Return to move these two clips forward two seconds.

6.

Deselect all the clips using the shortcut Shift-Cmd-A.

7.

There is another way to select a group of adjacent clips. Click the first clip in the sequence and Shift-click the last clip.

These two clips and all clips in-between are selected.

You can also select and make changes to a group of clips that are not next to each other in the Timeline.

8.

Press Shift-Cmd-A to deselect the clips.

9.

Click the first clip in the sequence, hold down the Command key, and click the last clip in the sequence.

Note

As in other Macintosh applications, using the Command key allows you to select nonadjacent clips. Cmd-clicking on a selected clip a second time will deselect it.

Project Tasks

1.

Practice selecting and deselecting groups of clips in different ways.

2.

Practice moving single clips and groups of clips by dragging or by typing a Move amount.

3.

Finish by moving the first clip to the head of the sequence and dragging the other clips up to snap together so that there are no spaces between them.

4.

Save your project by pressing Cmd-S.




Apple Pro Training Series Final Cut Express HD
Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Express HD
ISBN: 0321335333
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 174
Authors: Diana Weynand

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