it's time to fall in love with the final cut pro magnetic timeline in this video i'll show
you how to work with clips to take advantage of all the functions that final cut offers
i'm rafael and welcome to the channel where our goal is to always fix it in camera and
then finesse it in post and i always appreciate the early thumbs up because there are many ways
to adjust clips but understand these few functions and you'll love the magnetic timeline in final cut
pro first let's get some clips onto the timeline to work with there are a few ways to do this you
can simply drag and drop or you can use these buttons to place clips on your timeline cue to
connect a clip on top of the primary storyline where the playhead is w to insert a clip to the
primary storyline where the playhead is e to append a clip to the end of the storyline once
the clips are on the timeline let's move them around and adjust them this is where many people
misunderstand the magnetic of the magnetic timeline but it's where its strength lies
there are three main tools for moving clips around the select tool position tool and trim tool with
the select tool moving clips is simple enough you can arrange and reorder the clips in your project
however you want you can add or move a clip to the timeline simply by dragging the other clips just
move to make room for it to move a clip out of the primary storyline just right click and select
lift from storyline or option command up arrow the down arrow will move it down onto the storyline
any clips connected to the primary storyline will also move if you want to move a clip but
not the connected clip press and hold the tilde key that ignores the clip connection and lets you
freely move the storyline clip we'll talk about clip connections a lot in this video and how you
can ignore them depending on the task you're doing more on those a little bit later with
the position tool you can overwrite clips also as a note to switch to the position tool temporarily
hold down the p key when you release the p key the tool reverts to the previously active tool
this is a good thing to get your muscle memory accustomed to select the clip you want to move
drag the clip to the new position in the timeline and it'll overwrite the other clip the moved clip
will overwrite any clips that are in the new position and a gap clip fills the vacant part
of the timeline that the original clip came from make sure to press a to return to the select tool
if it didn't automatically do it the trim in the timeline with either the selection tool or the
position tool move the pointer to the start point or the end point of a clip that you want to trim
the pointer changes from an arrow icon to a trim icon the look of the trim icon changes to indicate
whether the trim will affect the end point of the left clip or the start of the right clip this is a
ripple edit the basic trim edit with the select tool the json clip will move with the timeline
and with the position tool active a gap will be created just note if either end point turns red
as you drag you reach the end of the available media for that side of the clip the trim tool is
an extension of the trimming functions but opens the door to way more this is where you can do roll
slip or slide edit this is one of those tools once you understand it just a little bit you'll love it
click the tools pop-up menu in the top left corner of the timeline and choose the trim
or press t again to switch to the trim tool temporarily hold down the t key roll edits are
the easiest to understand and do what they are called they roll the edit point left or right
a slip edit with the trim tool selected click and hold on the clip and move it left or right
your footage in and out points will move without changing the duration or the position of the clip
slide edits are almost the same but instead of changing the in and out points of the clip
it slides a clip left or right on the timeline and it shortens and lengthens the clips on either side
another important function is the blade tool you can select it from the tool menu or by clicking
ctrl b you can use this tool to make your cuts your edits to split up clips pressing v on the
keyboard will disable or re-enable a clip to nudge clips press comma or period to nudge the start and
end points one frame to the left or right you can also press shift comma or shift period to nudge
the start and end points 10 frames to the left or right if you select the position tool and nudge
you will overwrite the clip you are nudging over split edits are a great way to extend the audio
without moving the transition point double-click the clips audio waveform to open it or press ctrl
s now you can adjust the duration of the audio either create a j cut or an l cut lead with audio
or lead with video and now the trim tools work the same way with just the footage nudging audio works
exactly the same but you can get more detailed with audio into sub frames if you want to nudge
connected audio clips by one or more subframes do any of the following to move the selection by
one subframe press option comma to go to the left or option period to go to the right to move audio
by 10 subframes press option shift comma to go to the left or option shift period to go to the right
just make sure that you double click the audio to close it but it retains the edit underneath it's
just not visible until you double click the audio waveform again what if you want to adjust the
clips connection by default connected clips and story lines are connected to the primary storyline
at their very first frame but you can move the connected point this is useful when you want to
connect to a specific frame or audio sample in the connected clip or story line to a specific frame
or audio sample in the primary storyline hold down the command and option keys and then click
the connected clip at the point where you want the new position to be connected the connection point
is moved to the point where you click pressing the grav accent or tilde key the one that's right
below most escape keys ignores the connected clip connections you can also have secondary storylines
which is a way to group clips together and still be able to move the clips around with the magnetic
functionality i use this with b-roll and vo's all the time no when you apply a transition to a clip
connected to the primary storyline a secondary storyline is automatically created for that clip
another way to group clips is to create a compound clip by right-clicking and selecting new compound
clip or pressing option g unlike the storyline this creates something that is treated like
a single new clip and if you want to edit that footage you have to double click and go into that
to adjust it effectively each new compound clip can be considered a new mini project with its own
distinct project settings compound clips function like other clips you can add them to your project
trim them re-time them add effects and transitions i use compound clips to simplify a complicated
project by creating a separate compound clip for each major section or when i want to do a final
mix down for the audio i did a whole video on how i do audio mix in final cut pro you can check it
out in the description gaps and placeholders are also really important for the timeline
they are really good to fill out the timeline for proper timing before you have all the footage
press option w for gaps or option command w for a placeholder i typically use gaps for my own
work but if i'm sending something to a client i'll use a placeholder that can be pretty good
to convey what type of shot will go there when we get the footage placeholders are great you
can add up to five people different settings with different focal lengths wide close also add notes
to further describe the shot that is needed also if you have footage that is different dimensions
in your timeline you can change the spatial conform setting to make it fit better before
you have to adjust the scale in the transform and these buttons on the right turn the video
and audio skimming on and off this is where you can scrub back and forth on the timeline you can
see and hear the video as you're scrubbing over it and this disables or enables snapping this is
handy when you want to have more precise control over the timeline cursor and this drop down gives
you access to how the timeline looks zoom in zoom out make your audio waveforms larger or smaller
this drop down is really important as well it's where most of the timeline remapping functions
and controls are you can speed it up slow down hold speed ramp and reverse a clip or you can
press command r to open up the retime controls on the clip and make your adjustments right in the
timeline if you want to see larger audio meters you can press the little audio meters below the
view window right here make sure you check out my video about keyboard shortcuts to do a deep dive
how to get around the timeline even faster also the index is a great way to find clips and titles
within your own timeline the magnetic timeline is so great when you understand it just a little bit
it's hard to go to any other nle after you've used it i've made more videos on how to improve
your workflow and final cut pro make sure you check out this playlist as always thanks for
watching give this video a big thumbs up subscribe i'm raphael i'll talk to you soon bye for now