Final Cut Pro HD | H•O•T Hands-On Training [Electronic resources]

1.

Open Chapter 05 Lesson, if it isn't already open. And load Seq Snowboard start into the Timeline.

2.

Click Blue sky to select it. Press the Delete key. Poof. (Remember, the Delete key is the one that says "Delete" at the top of the keyboard, not "del" next to the End key.)

3.

OK. Maybe that was too easy. Get the clip back by pressing Cmd+Z to undo the deletion. But deleting dozens of clips is the same as deleting one: Select what you want to delete, and press the Delete key.

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4.

Again, select the first three clips by dragging a rectangle around them, then press the Delete key. (You could choose Sequence > Lift, but…why? Life is too short.)

Notice the gap that removing these clips has left? Sometimes you want the gap. Sometimes you don't. Removing clips and leaving a gap is called a lift. Removing clips and pulling up all downstream clips so that there is no gap is called a ripple delete, because its effect ripples through the rest of the sequence.

5.

Again, press Cmd+Z (or choose Edit > Undo) to bring those three clips back.

To perform a ripple delete, select a clip in the middle of the sequence; for instance, Down mountain, and press Shift+Delete. (Again, you could choose Sequence > Ripple Delete, but, really, do you actually have that much time?)

Instead of pressing Shift+Delete, you could also press the del key, next to the End key.

6.

There are three more selection techniques to illustrate. Select the Range Selection tool you learned about in the last exercise, select the end of White coat jump WS, and select the beginning of White coat jump MS. Then, press the Delete key.

Notice that the selected area disappears and leaves a gap.

7.

Press Cmd+Z (or choose Edit > Undo) to undo that last deletion. This time, press Shift+Delete and watch how the selected area disappears, along with the gap.

This gap-closing technique is very helpful in quickly trimming between clips.

The following is another technique that, although I rarely use it for deleting clips, I use a lot with the power editing techniques I show you in Exercise 4.

8.

Choose File > Revert to load the last saved version back from disk.

When you revert a file, you lose all the changes you've made since you last saved the project. However, sometimes, I make so many changes to a sequence that just don't work out, it is faster to revert back to a saved version than to try to restore everything using undo.

In this case, reverting makes it easy to get all the original clips back that were deleted earlier in this exercise.

9.

Now, position the playhead in the Timeline to timecode 01:00:23:00 and press I to set an In.

10.

Notice that, just as in the Viewer, an In appears on the Timeline. And, unlike the Viewer, the Timeline highlights to show which clips are affected by the In.

11.

Next, drag the playhead forward to 01:00:26:00, and press O to set an Out.

You could, if you prefer, use the Marking tools in the Canvas to set the In and Out, because the Canvas is just another view of the Timeline. The same tools work in both places. However, you can't use the markingtools in the Viewer, because those tools have no effect on clips in the Timeline, only clips in the Viewer.

Regardless of how you set the In and Out, when you are done your Timeline now has a highlighted section marked by an In and Out.

Look up to the topleft corner of the Canvas. The duration of this Timeline shot is 3:01. Why the extra frame? Because, as you learned in the last exercise, Final Cut is an inclusive editor, which means that it always includes the frame the playhead is parked on. From 23:00 to 26:00 is 3 seconds and 1 frame:

12.

Now, after all this effort setting the In and Out, press the Delete key, and the section bounded by the In and Out disappears.This is called a Lift Delete. Or, press Shift+Delete to make the highlighted section disappear and close the gap. This is called a Ripple Delete. (By the way, the Delete key is the key just above the Return key that has the word Delete written on it. The del key, which I call the "Forward Delete" key, is not the same as the Delete key.)

One more deletion technique to coverfinding and deleting gaps in the Timelineand you are done with this lesson.

Gaps creep into the Timeline when clips are dragged down from the Viewer, or the playhead is in the wrong position when you apply an automated tool. A gap is defined as a horizontal space between all tracks in the Timeline.

13.

For instance, scroll down the Timeline and look immediately after the In the lake clip. There's a small gap in the Timeline between these two clips.

14.

Such a small gap. Wouldn't it be nice to see it more easily? Well, you canwith the Zoom tool. Select the first Zoom tool in the Tool palette (or press the letter Z.)

15.

Draw across the area you want to enlarge and let go of the mouse.

The Timeline zooms in so you can see the gap a whole lot better.

16.

If you zoomed in too far, you can zoom out by selecting the Zoom Out tool, or by pressing ZZ, or, what's easiest for me, Option+clicking where you want to zoom out using the Zoom In tool.

17.

In any case, click once in the gap to highlight it, then press the Delete key, and the gap is closed.

18.

Final Cut can help you find gaps in your Timeline. Choose Mark > Next > Gap (Shift+G) or Mark > Previous > Gap (Option+G).

This jumps the playhead to the next (or previous) gap in the Timeline.

Another way to delete a gap is to leave the playhead positioned at the beginning of the gap…

19.

…then choose Sequence > Close Gap, or press Ctrl+G.

However, not all gaps are across all tracks. Sometimes a gap in a video (or audio) track is covered by other video or audio clips on other tracks. This gap in a single track is called a track gap.

There's a special command in Final Cut you can use to find these gaps.

20.

For this command to work, select a track by Option+clicking its Auto Select button. This selects a specific track by turning off all other Auto Select buttons except the one for the track you want to select. (You'll learn more about Auto Select buttons in the next exercise.)

21.

Next, choose Mark > Next > Track Gap (or press Shift+G).

This technique finds gaps in tracks, even when they are covered by other video or audio clips. Once you've found a gap, you can then decide whether you want to delete it or not.

22.

Well, that ends this exercise on deletion. Next, you'll learn how to harness selecting and deleting clips, along with some new techniques to get your Timeline into shape for final trimming.

If you are done for a while, quit Final Cut and don't save changes. If you are going immediately into the next exercise, File > Revert this lesson back to the last saved version on disk.