Preparing the Project

You will begin by opening the Lesson 2 Project file and playing a finished sequence.

1.	In the Dock, click the Final Cut Pro icon once.
2.	Choose File > Open, and navigate to the Lessons folder, as you did in Lesson 1.
3.	Select the Lesson 2 Project file, and click Choose. In the Browser, the project elements are already organized into bins, the way you organized the elements in the previous lesson.
4.	If you have another project open (as shown in the following figure), Ctrl-click its tab in the Browser and choose Close Tab from the shortcut menu.
5.	In the Timeline, play the current sequence titled Amanda Finished. Remember to press Shift-Z whenever you want to see the entire sequence in full view. TIP You will be working with audio in this lesson, so make sure you take a moment to adjust your computer's sound levels. This sequence is from another section of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian film, A Thousand Roads. You can read more about this project in the Getting Started section of this book.
6.	To hear the sequence without the narration, or voice-over, click the green Audible control button for the A4 track to temporarily toggle off the sound of that track. Each track has a green Visible (video) or Audible (audio) control in the Timeline track control area. When clicked, that track turns dark and will not be seen or heard as you play the sequence.
7.	Play the sequence again, and listen to it without the voice-over narration. In this lesson, you will edit Scenes 97 and 98. You will also edit one of the voice-over clips. The others will be added in the next lesson.
8.	Click the A4 Audible control once again to toggle on the audio for that track.
9.	In the Timeline, drag the playhead across the ruler area until it snaps to the green marker. Look at the marker name displayed in the Canvas. TIP If the playhead doesn't appear to snap, press N on your keyboard to turn on snapping. We'll discuss snapping in Lesson 3. Markers are used throughout Final Cut Pro to help locate or identify a specific frame in a clip or sequence. Here it is identifying where Scene 98 begins. This is the scene you will edit first. You will create your own markers in later lessons.