Final Cut Pro X Essentials - Working in the Timeline Video Lecture | Final Cut Pro Essentials: A Complete Guide - Video & Sound Editing

now that we've gone over the foundation
of Final Cut Pro 10 let's get into the
core of it all the Edit in this lesson
we're going to go over the timeline
getting deeper into the timeline basics
like storyline magnetic timeline
navigation timeline tools connected
clips compound clips and lastly gap
clips let's take a look you'll find that
working within the Final Cut Pro 10
timeline it's quite different than other
nonlinear editors and if you haven't
used other nonlinear editors well let's
take a look at really how they work and
what it all is doing so the basics of
the timeline is all built around the
primary storyline the primary storyline
is the vein of your edit it's the
foundation visually in the timeline it's
this main track right in the middle it
is notated by the dark grey line versus
the light gray up and below it and all
timelines have a primary storyline so
you have whatever you're building off of
if you are within your timeline wherever
your playhead is is what you'll be
seeing in your viewer here you can see
that I'm going up and low here from my
primary storyline to another storyline
and it's showing me only what's in the
storyline here or what's in the primary
storyline here if I go up and I actually
move the playhead though it'll show me
both of them as they are composited
together now storylines are just a
sequence of clips so beat your primary
or your secondary is just a place to
group things so you can group cutaways
titles you can even group sound effects
and music as a secondary storyline next
let's take a look at connected clips
connected clips are attached to clips in
the primary storyline in the timeline
they're useful for cutaway shots
composited images and sound effects
connected clips remain attached and
synchronize until you explicitly move or
remove them a sequence of connected
Clips is a storyline now let's take a
look at a connected clip what they look
like and then how they move together and
lastly we'll cover how to move the
actual connection point which is
something you'll probably need to do on
a common occurence so let's take a look
we'll just grab a clip here from our
favorites
let's see here maybe we'll grab the shot
here there's not much going on with it
so we're going to grab this clip and
we're going to bring it down and it's a
connected clip because you can see
there's a little connection point right
where the two connect and the other way
to tell is that it's stacked here on the
primary storyline so this goes you know
and you can move it anywhere you'd like
and it can be a cutaway so say I needed
a cutaway to this shot and then cut back
I can I can have that here and the thing
is though is that they actually stay
with whatever they're connected to if
you move that main file within your
primary storyline so let's take a look
at that if I move the primary storyline
the connected clip moves along with it
and every time I move it it'll go and be
connected to it so if I have like a
sequence that I've made but I just want
to move it somewhere else in the Edit
they'll actually move together and
that's really helpful so what if I
wanted to change the connection point of
my connection clip there might be a lot
of different needs for this but it's
really this connection point that's
right here what if I didn't want these
three clips to be connected but rather I
wanted this clip to be connected to this
clip because it was this clip that
triggered my need for the b-roll what if
I had added this and had been over here
so I did the timing but then I wanted to
change the way it all worked well the
connection point is still at this clip
so I can still move those together you
might want to write this down because
it's something that you'll probably have
to look up dozens of times so write it
down on like a sticky note of some sort
and stick it next to your monitor
because you will get frustrated with
this if you have been editing and you
need to move that point instead of going
having to look it up again just write it
down and it's command option click so
command option click and I click on the
top of the clip that I want to change
the connection point to where I want the
connection point to be so right now you
can see the playhead is right there with
my cursor and if I press command option
click there it moves it and see I can
move it wherever I'd like but I want to
move it to here so now these two clips
are connected and it's real simple real
easy but you will definitely run into
this issue from time to time so write it
down now let's look over compound Clips
the idea of a compound clip is that I
have a storyline here and I want to
group them together so that I can affect
them
gather either by changing their size or
maybe colorizing them or doing something
maybe I'm going to a dream sequence and
this is going to be the dream sequence
together but I want to cut away to it
what I can do is if I highlight both my
clips and you can do a keyboard shortcut
of option G or you can right-click on it
and go newb compound clip or you can
press ctrl click and you go a new
compound clip so let's do option G so
highlight them both option G and now it
wants me to name this compound clip so
let's call it compound spelled right
clip example one I'm going to go okay
and so now you see it's actually one
piece of video so if I wanted to then
change the connection point of this
compound clip I can do it the same way
so now I connected here those two are
connected there and then I can choose it
here and they'll actually be moved to
that clip so let's take a look at what
this looks like so what this actually is
doing is creating another storyline that
you can then go into by double clicking
on the actual compound itself that is
going to make the video that you have as
a connected clip but now it's going to
have its own primary storyline so let's
double click and take a look at that I
double click on it and now you can see
primary storyline secondary storyline I
can organize this just like it's a whole
separate edit and then once I am done
with my sequence of what I'm doing I can
go back into my main project and go back
so you can see this is my project name
compound clip example 1 if I just go
back it now has it here it'd be very
helpful if I want to resize my compound
clip or whatever I'm doing so that I can
now manipulate it as a whole instead of
a bunch of separate videos one last
thing to add is that compound clips can
be made up of video audio and titles or
really whatever asset you need to use
they work just like your primary
timeline they're just grouped together
now let's talk about gap clips you might
find yourself with the situation where
you're trying to show a cut and you want
to dip to black you want to be on black
because you're going to have some titles
there maybe it's for some kind of movie
trailer what-have-you that you're
creating some drama with and then you
want to go back
to video now so far we have the magnetic
timeline and if I grab a clip and I
bring it to the end here it's just going
to snap right to the back end of it but
say I wanted to go to black and then I
want to go back to my video what do I do
it's called a gap clip and it's a blank
clip also known as a slug or mat or
color mat depending on what nonlinear
editor you're working on and they have
no sound all you need to do to insert a
gap clip is to go into your position
tool if we go to our little tool box
here we can go down to position or we
can hit our keyboard shortcut P and you
can see it's an arrow without the handle
there all I have to do now is I can grab
this clip if I bring it back a little
bit now a gap clip has been created and
that will be in any length you want so
if I bring this clip way back here it'll
make the gap clip an actual clip you can
adjust you can edit and whatnot it will
go along with you so I want to shorten
it or I want to make it longer you can
do all of those things one thing to pay
attention whenever you're using the
position tool is because it looks so
much like the Select tool you might find
yourself moving stuff around while still
using that tool so make sure you press a
to get back to your Select tool because
if you don't you'll be adding gap Clips
just about everywhere and it's
frustrating so just make sure to go back
to your Select tool so that you don't
have any unwanted or unneeded gap Clips
another thing we'd like to cover is the
timeline index timeline index will help
you find specific clips and markers
within your timeline and it also help
you find keywords so if you just come
down here the bottom left you click on
this button here and your timeline index
will open up and I had been searching
for a gap clip and see there it actually
shows you the gap clip and if you click
on it it'll highlight it in white so you
can find it quickly and if this was a
really complicated edit it would help
you find things this is a 20 second edit
so it's not necessarily the hardest
thing to navigate but it'll help you
find when you're doing a real complex
edit where you have lots and lots of
parts and aspects to your edit and
you'll just be able to get right to them
really quickly now we've already talked
about it a little bit but let's dive in
deeper to the magnetic timeline the
magnetic timeline automatically tracks
clip relationships as
you rearrange trim and add clips it lets
you easily make changes in even the most
complex sequences so let's take a look
at it in action it's really quite simple
it's just like things are attracted by
magnetism they just snap right to each
other so that's really cool if you just
want to arrange things really quickly if
you spent a lot of time organizing you
have your favorites full of all your
clips trim the way you want them you can
just now put them in order and they're
going to magnetically clip to each other
and it's just going to make it for a
quick edit the magnetic timeline is
affecting clips within the storyline the
main primary storyline and the clips
outside of the storyline everywhere
magnetism is happening there are two
ways to delete Clips to invoke or ignore
magnetism so let's let's take a look at
the first way which is if you just
delete a clip between two clips the
outside clips are going to now go
together like a magnet let me get rid of
this clip here and if I press Delete
you'll see that boom the outside clip
comes and meets with the clip just prior
to the one that I deleted say that's not
what you wanted to do instead you want
to keep that timing but you want to have
a placeholder or just to keep the edit
you want or maybe you want to make sure
that the connected clips that are there
are there instead you can then if you
press shift and backspace at the same
time it's going to put a gap clip
between those two clips and the timing
is going to stay as designed let's look
at how to navigate the size of your
timeline so if you'd like to get in
close to a place for an edit and get
into the frames you can do that or if
you just want to look at one little area
so your timeline is an hour long you
just want to look at five minutes or
what-have-you the way you can zoom in
and zoom out and then fit to zoom so
first let's take a look at how to zoom
in and out there's a tool that is called
the zoom tool and it looks like a
magnifying glass you can also get it
with a keyboard shortcut z and what it
does is you can either draw an area that
you want it to zoom so if you want to
get into just this little area to do a
tighter edit or get in there frame by
frame and really perfect it you can do
that and when you get closer as well
just any given point you can click and
get closer as well you can use command
plus and command minus to zoom in if
you're just doing keyboard shortcuts and
you don't want to change tools if you
press optioning
click you will zoom out and that'll be
nice because you want to get it into a
certain view or you just want to get out
zoom in zoom out you're not necessarily
drawing the space that you want to go to
you're just in the Edit and really
focusing another nice keyboard shortcut
to use is zoom to fit and if you press
Shift + Z it will zoom in to just your
active timeline area so that you don't
have any empty space if I am zoomed out
here so it's showing me about a minute
and I want to fit just to my active
timeline shift Z and it gets it done now
next is a thing called snapping now I'm
going to change my tool I'm going to
press a and get back to my arrow or
select tool and I want to show you how
snapping works so snapping if you see my
cursor the playhead that's connected to
my cursor is going right along and as
keeps it up with that line but as soon
as I get close to an edge it snaps it
and see it also changes the color there
but it jumps from and goes right to that
cut that could be a pain if you're
trying to do things that are off timing
from cuts so turning on and off snapping
is helpful the N key is your keyboard
shortcut and you can turn that on and
off and you can see over here on the
corner of your timeline that the light
as it turns on and off will turn blue so
this button will turn blue when it's on
and turning off on off on so real easy
to turn on and off and you can also
click on that icon to turn it on and off
now the next thing that you can turn on
and off in the same menu is skimming now
skimming is tied to audio skimming so
right now it's just got video skimming
on but I can turn audio skimming on as
well and if I come up to my Clips here
both the video and the audio skim now if
I go back down to that menu and I turn
off just skimming in general it will
turn them both off so you can have just
video if you want which is turning off
audio skimming and have skimming on you
can then have audio skimming on and both
of them on so it's skimming both video
and audio and to turn skimming on and
off as s and turning audio skimming on
is shift s let's turn that off because I
find it a little bit annoying only when
I'm just trying to do an edit
if I'm up in my clip menu it's actually
really nice to have on so let's turn
that on but I'm gonna turn audio
skimming off because that actually is a
little bit more pleasant let's finish up
with some keyboard shortcuts of some
small actions that you might want to use
so first right off the bat is soloing
now if you just press option + S it will
turn on and off soloing and it'll solo
whatever you're clicked on so right now
I'm clicked on this video clip of me on
a zipline and if I hold option S it'll
turn it on or I'll turn on this button
over here on the top right of your
timeline and you can see that it Gray's
everything else out so it's just soloing
this one video so it's whatever your
highlighted on it will solo I might be
doing this because I really want to get
the audio right and the music underneath
it was distracting and I don't want to
hear it but I don't want to like turn it
off or disable it or anything like that
I can just solo and now I can watch just
this clip just by itself now to play
other things but I'm just hearing just
that next if you want to go in and out
of frames let's turn off soloing and you
can go between frames if you want to go
forward a frame you press the forward
key and if you want to go back with the
backwards key if you press the J key
it'll play backwards and every time you
press it it actually get faster the K
button will pause so if I'm going
forward just press spacebar and I press
K it'll pause and then if I press L it
will move forward just like Jay did
backwards so every time I press it it'll
go faster so there you go very fast now
lastly this is a really helpful tool
just when you're trying to really get in
and make sure your edits is just
absolutely perfect if you want to nudge
your clip 1 frame back or one frame
forward use the comment period comma
will go backwards in time and period
will go forward in time so backward or
forward and it will just adjust that
clip and move it in time the whole thing
one forward one back or how many times
you press it and lastly if you want to
change your timeline time you just click
on it until it changes like that type in
your timecode so I want to go to five
seconds and bam it goes there and that
concludes working in the timeline in our
next
segment we're going to be covering
trimming tools and editing types