FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
sample: Lesson 6
Start selecting your best clips to edit, and learn how to assemble them in the editing timeline.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS TO REMEMBER:
READY TO EDIT? LET'S GO!
To begin editing, it is first necessary to create a new sequence. What follows are two ways to approach that. The first is for projects that have shorter clips, the second is for projects with longer clips.
WORKING WITH SHORTER CLIPS
To create a sequence when you are dealing with shorter clips, the process is fairly simple. Start by going through your list of clips in the Project panel. Double-clicking on a clip will reveal it in the Source Monitor, where you can preview you all files before inserting them into your sequence. In the Project panel you can choose to view your clips as a list or as icons with thumbnail previews as well. Remember, you can tap the Tilde (`) key to enlarge the active panel. This is especially useful when looking through a large number of imported clips. You can enlarge or reduce the size of the thumbnails by dragging the slider at the bottom of the window. Hold the mouse over the thumbnail to scrub through the footage without even opening the clip.
Once you have selected a clip, simply drag it onto the empty timeline to create a new sequence. If you already have a sequence open, you can alternatively right-click or control-click on your desired first clip, scroll down the menu that appears and choose the option “New Sequence from Clip”. Continue to select and drag clips, adding onto the end of your timeline until you have placed all the desired clips. Be careful not to drag a clip on top of another clip, or it will overwrite or erase and replace what is already there. If you want to drag and drop a clip in between two pre-existing clips on the timeline, simply hold down the Command key while dragging. You will see these triangles appear to know that the clip will be inserted properly.
In the Project panel you can re-name clips to better remember their content, and also organize them into Bins by clicking on the New Bin icon below. Keeping the Project panel organized is very helpful for retrieving content later. Note that this organization does not affect the clips’ file names or change their location on your hard drive.
WORKING WITH LONGER CLIPS
To create a sequence when you are dealing with longer clips, it is useful to first create ‘In’ and ‘Out’ points in the clips before dragging them into the timeline. Double-click on a desired clip to reveal it in the Source Monitor. To set an ‘In’ point, play or scroll the playhead to the desired in point and tap the letter ‘I’ key on your keyboard. To select an ‘Out’ point, play or scroll the playhead to the desired out point and press the letter ‘O’ key on the keyboard. Now, when you drag the clip to the timeline, it will contain only your selected content from ‘In’ to ‘Out’. These points will be preserved after closing the clip. But what happens when you need to select more than one section of a clip? You can create what are called Subclips. To create a Subclip, start by double-clicking on a clip in the Project panel, which will reveal it in the Source Monitor. Play or scroll through the clip in the Source Monitor and set your desired ’In’ and ‘Out’ points. Once the ’In’ and ‘Out’ points are set, from the menu bar choose Clip > Make Subclip or hold down the Command key and tap the letter ‘U’ key to create a Subclip. This window will appear, where you can create a name for the Subclip that will help you later identify its content. It is often useful to type in what the subject is saying or a description of the action or location. Uncheck the box to restrict the clip to subclip boundaries, and click OK. You will notice that the Subclip is saved and now appears in your Project panel next to your other clips, where you can organize as needed. Proceed to set new ‘In’ and ‘Out’ points as needed and repeat this process until you have chosen all of the footage you need.
INSERT AND OVERWRITE
The action of dragging clips into the timeline may become a bit cumbersome if you have a lot of clips to insert into your edit. An alternative to this is to use the ‘Insert’ and ‘Overwrite’ buttons located in your Source Monitor window. The ‘Insert’ button will insert the clip at the location of the playhead on the timeline. If inserting in between clips, it will push all the content to the right. Overwriting, used less commonly, will insert the clip at the playhead location and erase and replace any pre-existing clip at that location. The ‘comma’ key is the shortcut to Insert, and the ‘period’ key is the shortcut to Overwrite. Tapping the ‘comma’ key to insert selected clips is a fast way to build your first edit. Once an edit is built, there are more nuances to learn about the Insert and Overwrite tools, which will be covered in a later episode.
LOOP and PLAY SELECTION
To play only a selected range or from an ‘in’ to an ‘out’ point in isolation, hold down the ‘Option’ key and tap the letter ‘K’ key. To loop playback and make it play repeatedly, click on the Program Monitor or Source Monitor window as desired and hold down the Command key and tap L. If ‘In’ and ‘Out’ points are set, it will loop the selection, otherwise it will loop from beginning to end of the clip.