Trimming Two Edit Points

Once you have trimmed your clips and your sequence length is set, you will want to finesse clip content and placement. For example, you may want a specific action in a clip to fall on a beat of music. Or you may want to shift a clip's placement slightly in the sequence. There are three ways to adjust and fine-tune edit points, and each method uses a tool from the Tool palette. The three methods are slipping, rolling, and sliding. Each of these options will trim two edit points at the same time without changing the overall length of the sequence.

Note

In editing, the term edit point can refer either to an individual In or Out point, or to the juncture at which two individual edit points meet.

Slipping

Slipping trims both the In point and Out point in a single clip the same amount in the same direction at the same time, moving both edit points either to the left or to the right. This process is called slipping because you keep the clip length and location in the Timeline the same but slip the content earlier or later to adjust the selection of material.

Rolling

Rolling involves two adjacent clips. You can trim the Out point of the first clip and the In point of the following clip at the same time. This rolls the two clips' edit points earlier or later. One clip becomes shorter while the other becomes longer, still keeping the overall sequence length the same.

Sliding

Sliding adjusts two edit points but involves three adjacent clips. You can slide or shift the middle clip to the left, changing the Out point of the first clip and making it shorter. But the In point of the third clip adjusts to compensate, making it longer. This changes the position of the middle clip in the sequence but does not change the middle clip's duration or content.