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Trimming on the timeline

The Film step has a timeline under the player: every clip laid end to end, with thumbnails, a playhead, and a handle on each end you can drag.

The rule

Trimming changes the film, never the bill. You already paid for the whole clip.

How it works

  1. Open the Film step. The timeline sits under the player, one clip after another.
  2. Press play to watch the whole film. ⏭ and ⏮ jump straight to the next or previous cut, so you can replay a join without hunting for it. Drag anywhere on the timeline to move through it by hand.
  3. Click the clip you want to change. Two handles appear, one on each of its ends.
  4. Drag its left handle to start it later, or its right handle to end it sooner. It stops when the clip runs out — you can’t pull out footage that isn’t there.
  5. As you drag, the two frames either side of that cut appear below — the last frame of the clip on the left, the first frame of the one on the right. They should look alike. Keep dragging until they do.
  6. Press play again to watch the join you just made.

Prefer the keyboard? Click the timeline, then space plays, the arrow keys step a frame at a time (hold shift for a second), and [ or ] starts or ends the clip the playhead is inside. The ⓘ next to the clock repeats all of this, so you never have to remember it.

Good to know

  • Pulling a left edge right is the free fix. Each clip was filmed to open where the one before it ends, so trimming a head until the pictures match repairs a jump with nothing to redo.
  • Pulling a right edge left breaks that. It costs nothing either, but the clip after it now opens on a moment your film never reaches — it will say old join, and matching it again means making that clip anew.
  • The faint band after a cut is the cross-fade — where one shot dissolves into the next. Its length is the Dissolve setting.
  • A cut with no band cuts straight, and that is right. A cross-fade plays over the seconds you trimmed off the end of a clip. Trim nothing and there is nothing for it to play over — but each clip was already filmed to end on the frame the next one opens on, so cutting straight is the smoothest join there is.
  • A clip has to run at least half a second.
  • Make a new take of a clip and its trim steps aside, because it was measured on footage you’ve replaced.
  • Use + and − to zoom in when the clips are too small to see what’s in them.
  • Full screen is on the top-right corner of the player. It gives the picture and the timeline the whole window, with the settings in a column beside them. Esc brings you back.