3. Building the Timeline In this exercise, you'll start building your first sequence of clips to create your commercial. You'll continue practicing loading clips into the Viewer and marking them. Then, you'll learn 10 different ways to edit your clips to the Timelineand a couple of ways to avoid!
1. | If the last exercise is still open, great. If not, open Board Feet from your FCP HOT Book Projects folder. | 2. | Load Track Pink Sun into the Viewer and set the In and Out as described in the previous lesson. Your clip should have a duration of 6:03.Chapter 7, " AudioThe Secret to a Great Picture." Notice that the playhead automatically moved to the end of the clip. When there is no In or Out set in the Timeline (something you'll learn about in Exercise 4, later in this chapter), the Timeline playhead acts as the In. All clips edited from the Viewer are automatically placed at the position of the playhead in the Timeline.[View full size image] | 5. | Now select and mark a second clip by loading Blue sky into the Viewer. Move the playhead and set the In at 1:00:03:11just before he slides off the cliff. Then, move the playhead and set the Out at 1:00:07:10. If your duration is 4:00, you've done this correctly. | 6. | This time, click the red Overwrite button at the lower left of the Canvas. (The red Overwrite button does the exact same thing as the Overwrite overlay you used for the last clip. It's a different interfacea buttonbut the same result.) Your clip has been edited to the Timeline at the location of the playhead. And, again, the playhead moves to the end of the clip to get ready to position the next edit. | 7. | Time to add a third clip. Load Track The gap into the Viewer. Set the In about 5 seconds in, where his legs are covered in a cloud of snow. The timecode is 01:02:33:03. Set the duration to 3:26.[View full size image] | 8. | Now, drag the clip from the Viewer and place it on top of the red Overwrite button in the lower-left corner of the Canvas. Again, the clip is edited to the Timeline, and the playhead moves position. | 9. | Load the fourth clip, Down the Mountain, into the Viewer and drag the playhead a few seconds in, to where he straightens out to head downhill. (The In is 1:00:15:03 with a duration of 10:13.)Here's the fourth way to edit a clip to the Timeline: Press the F10 key.
NOTE | If Your Screen Suddenly Goes Crazy… It's not your fault. When Apple released OS X 10.3, they created a new feature called Exposé. Exposé is a very useful tool in that, when your screen is covered with lots of different windows from different applications, Exposé will scale and move all these windows so that you can see them all and pick the one you want. I use it a lot. The problem is that FCP and Exposé use the same keystrokes. Since I use the F10 key combination all the time in FCP (because, for me, it's the fastest way to edit), I've changed my Exposé settings so they don't interfere with Final Cut.Here's how.Click the Blue Apple at the top-left corner of your Mac, drag down and choose System Preferences. Click the Exposé icon. While holding down the Control key, click the All Windows pop-up menu and choose ^F9. This changes the Exposé keystroke from F9 to Ctrl+F9.Do the same for Application windows and Desktop.[View full size image] When you've made these changes, quit System Preferences.Now, your screen will no longer go crazy when you try to edit a clip to the Timeline using the function keys. |
 | 10. | Finally, let's add a last shot as payoff to the commercial. Load In the Lake into the Viewer. Set the In where he is just about to take off from the jump. Set the Out to where he's trying to keep from drowning. (The In is 01:01:06:18 with a duration of 6:23.)[View full size image] | 11. | This time, drag the clip from the Viewer to the end of the clips in the Timeline. Watch for the cursor to turn to a downward-pointing arrow, then let go. The clip is added to the end of the Timeline.
NOTE | Five Ways to Edit to the Timeline You've now learned five ways to edit a clip to the Timeline, four of them automated: Drag the clip from the Viewer to the overlay window in the Canvas. Drag the clip from the Viewer to the red Overwrite button in the Canvas. Click the red Overwrite button. Press the F10 key. Drag the clip from the Viewer to the Timeline. When the cursor turns to a downward-pointing arrow, let go. The first four automatically put the clip at the location of the Timeline Playhead. I find using these automated tools, especially while building my main story track, makes my editing faster and more accurate.However, I find that using the "drag-to-the-Timeline" approach works well when I am spotting in sound effects or creating composites. In other words, I use dragging to the Timeline only in special situations. |
NOTE | Defining Overwrite Edits vs. Insert Edits You've just spent a fair amount of time learning how to create an Overwrite edit. An Overwrite edit drops a clip to the Timeline and replaces any video it lands upon.There is a second kind of edit, called an Insert edit. This takes the clip on the Viewer, edits it to the Timeline at the point of the playhead, and pushes all the clips from that location downstream, or later in the Timeline.An Insert edit is very useful when you want to sandwich a shot between two shots that are already on the Timeline, as you'll see next. | Hmm…There's a problem. I just realized that the beginning of the sequence has two wide shots in a row. This would look better if you put in a different angle between the first and second shots. | 12. | To do this, load Fan Tail into the Viewer. Set the In to 1:00:28:11 and the duration to 4:05. | 13. | Move the playhead to the end of the first clip. The fastest way to do this is to use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard, but you can also drag the playhead with your mouse until it seems to "lock" into position between the two clips. | 14. | Drag the clip from the Viewer over to the yellow overlay rectangle in the Canvas labeled Insert. Notice how the clip is placed where the playhead was located, and all the clips, starting with Blue sky, were shoved down further on the Timeline. This new clip was "inserted" into the middle of the sequence. | 15. | Keep this project open. You'll come right back to it in the next exercise. Save your work by pressing Cmd+S. |
NOTE | Five Ways to Do an Insert Edit Just as there are five ways to perform an Overwrite edit, there are also five ways to create an Insert edit. In all cases, you start by setting the In and the Out for the clip in the Viewer. Drag the clip from the Viewer to the Insert option of the overlay window in the Canvas. Drag the clip from the Viewer to the yellow Insert button in the lower-left corner of the Canvas. Click the yellow Insert button in the lower-left corner of the Canvas. Press the F9 key. Drag the clip from the Viewer to the Timeline. When the cursor turns into a right-pointing arrow, let go.
 What determines if the cursor is a down-pointing or right-pointing arrow when you drag to the Timeline? The thin, light gray horizontal line in the middle of the video track. If the cursor is above the line, the arrow points right and creates an Insert edit. If the cursor is below the gray line, the arrow points down and creates an Overwrite edit. |
MOVIE | editing.mov If you want to see these 10 editing techniques in action, watch the movie named Editing.mov inside the movies folder on the FCP HD HOT DVD. This movie illustrates how to mark clips, the differences between Overwrite and Insert edits, and all the different ways to move a clip from the Viewer to the Timeline. |
NOTE | Don't Drag Clips from the Browser Although this may seem tempting, it is generally not a good idea to drag a clip directly from the Browser to the Timeline. There are four reasons for this: You can't set an In or Out on the clip. Ins or Outs are only set in the Viewer or Timeline. You can't use the automated tools to control clip placement, such as using the F10 key or the Overwrite overlay to send a clip to the exact position of the playhead. Moving a clip manually means once you move it to the Timeline, you still need to trim it, which creates potential Timeline gaps and positioning errors. You can't easily view a clip in the Browser to make sure it's the right one. Yes, you can use thumbnails, but those are often far too small to see what's actually in the shot. It is faster, more accurate, and easier to get into the habit of loading a clip into the Viewer, set the In and Out, and use your favorite automated technique to drop the clip exactly where you want it to go on the Timeline. |
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