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Basic Editing in Final Cut Pro

Become an effective storyteller with these basic techniques for video editing, including editing tools, shortcuts, and how to use the Timeline Index.

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Introduction

Editing is where the spark of creativity first lights. Editing decides which portion of each clip to show and where it goes in the timeline. Trimming adjusts where two clips touch, called the edit point. Trimming is critically important to storytelling because it adjusts how smoothly one shot flows into the next. Often, you’ll spend more time trimming than editing, even for simple projects.

In this chapter, we—finally!—move into actual editing. There’s so much to cover that we’ll divide editing and trimming into two parts: basic techniques in this chapter and advanced techniques in the next.

  • Mark Clips

  • Edit Clips

  • Editing Tools

  • Trim Clips

  • Timeline Index

  • Shortcuts

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