Preparing the Project

To get started in Lesson 9, you will launch Final Cut Express and then open the project for this lesson.

1.	In the menu, choose File > Open, or press Cmd-O, and choose the Lesson 9 Project file from the Lessons folder on your hard drive.
2.	Close any other projects that may be open from a previous session by Ctrl-clicking their name tabs in the Browser and choosing Close Tab from the shortcut menu.
3.	In the Timeline, click the Dad Finished sequence and play the sequence. This is the first sequence you will create in this lesson. It is not a finished sequence but the first stage of one.
4.	Look in the Canvas Duration field to see the duration of this sequence.
5.	Click the Dad Sound Bites sequence in the Timeline. What is the duration of this sequence? Even though the two sequences look the same length in the Timeline, they do not represent the same length of time. Whenever you press Shift-Z, the entire sequence is resized to fit in the Timeline window, no matter how long the sequence actually is. You will be trimming about one minute off the length of this sequence to make it look more like the Dad Finished sequence. Let's make another copy of the Dad Sound Bites sequence so that you can use it for a second trimming method later in this lesson.
6.	In the Browser, duplicate the Dad Sound Bites sequence and name the copy Dad Sound Bites 2.
7.	Leave the Dad Finished sequence open for reference.