Trimming Multiple Clips

[ This article was first published in the July, 2005, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]

This tutorial grew out of a question in one of my classes: How can I trim several clips at the same time?

His specific request came when we were talking about the need, for instance in a documentary, to trim clips on several tracks at once. There are a variety of ways to do this, so here are some examples.

Multi-track Rippling

This technique is a good choice when you need to ripple the In, or Out, of a talking head, while still keeping the B-roll in sync. A Ripple adjusts the In or the Out, but not both. I use this to adjust the timing or placement of a clip.

1. Turn Snapping off (press N)
2. Select the Ripple tool (press RR)
3. Click the In, or Out, of the linked clip on V1 to select it. In this example, I used the In.
4. Hold the Command key and click the In of the clip on V2 to select it.
5. Drag the Ripple tool to trim your edit. This adjusts the audio and video In of all selected cilps at once.

Multi-track Rolling

This technique is a good choice when you need to adjust the Out of the first clip and the In of the second clip at the same time. Most often, I use this to adjust the timing of when an edit point occurs.

1. Turn Snapping off (press N)
2. Select the Roll tool (press R)
3. Click the edit point to select both the In and the Out of the linked clip on V1.
4. Hold the Command key and click the edit point of the clip on V2. Again, because the audio and video are linked, both the audio and video edit points are selected.
5. Drag the Roll tool to adjust the timing of where the edit point occurs.

Rolling Just Audio, or Just Video

You can’t ripple trim just the audio or the video, it would throw everything out of sync, so Final Cut prevents it. (If you do find yourself confronting a whole flock of red “out-of-sync” flags, Control+click on a red flag and select Move Into Sync.)

However, you can Roll just the audio or video. In fact, this is the trimming technique that I use the most. This allows me to change picture without affecting audio, or tweak the audio without changing video. However, doing this for clips on multiple tracks is a bit tricky, so follow closely.

1. Turn Snapping off (press N)



2. Select the Edit Selection tool (press G). This allows you to easily select edit points across multiple tracks.



3. Hold the Option key and drag the Edit Selection tool around the edits you want to change, in this case, just the audio. The Option key allows you to select just the audio, or just the video, of a linked clip.
4. Select the Roll tool (type R).
5. Drag the Roll tool to adjust your edit points.

This technique works equally well at adjusting video, audio, or both. The key is using the Option key with the Edit Selection tool.

 

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