The timeline: trimming, moving and re-timing clips

The timeline is the bottom half of the editor in Advanced mode. Everything on the reel is a block on it — a clip, a line of text, a shape, a piece of music — and where the block sits is when it plays.

Reading it

• Ruler — time, left to right. Click anywhere on it to move the playhead, the

vertical line that marks the frame you're looking at in the preview.

• Track heads — the column on the left names each track and holds its controls.
• Main — the tall track with the film strip. It's the reel's backbone: the clips on

it play one after another, and everything on the tracks above is drawn over it.

• Tracks above Main — text, images, shapes. Higher on the list means drawn on top.
• Tracks below Main — audio only. Music never covers anything, so it lives underneath.
• Toolbar — + Add puts a new layer on the reel; then split, duplicate and delete

for the selection; on the right, snapping, Fit to width and the zoom slider.

Selecting

Click a block to select it — its inspector opens in the sidebar. Ctrl A selects every clip, Esc clears the selection, and when more than one is selected the toolbar says how many. On a Mac, ⌘ stands in for Ctrl throughout this article.

Moving

Drag a block along its track to change when it plays. With snapping on (the magnet button, or Shift M) the block clicks into place against the playhead and the edges of other clips, which is what you want nearly all the time; turn it off for a tiny adjustment that snapping keeps fighting.

For precise moves, use the keyboard: ← and → nudge the selected clips one frame, Shift ← and Shift → one second.

Trimming

Drag either end of a block to trim it. What that means depends on the layer:

• For a video or audio clip, trimming changes which part of the file plays. Pull the

start in to skip a slow first second; pull the end in to cut it short.

• For text, images and shapes, trimming changes how long it stays on screen.

To choose the part of a long clip with more precision, right-click it and pick Trim source. The Trim Video dialog plays the clip and lets you set the portion to use. Its Loop to fill slot switch decides what happens if that portion is shorter than the slot: on, the clip repeats; off, it holds its last frame.

Splitting

Put the playhead where the cut should be, select the clip, and press Ctrl B — or use the scissors in the toolbar, or right-click and choose Split at playhead. You get two clips that can be moved, trimmed and replaced separately. Splitting is how you drop a different clip into the middle of one, or put a transition partway through.

Duplicating, copying and deleting

Ctrl D duplicates the selected layer. Ctrl C, Ctrl X and Ctrl V copy, cut and paste clips — paste puts them at the playhead. Delete or Backspace removes the selection; a locked layer won't delete until it's unlocked. Ctrl Z undoes any of it, Ctrl Shift Z redoes.

Replacing a clip

Right-click a clip and choose Replace media to swap the file while keeping the block's position, length and any transition. This is the same thing the Media tab's Replace button does.

Transitions between clips

Two clips next to each other on Main can have a transition between them. Right-click the first of the two and choose Add transition (or use the Transition section of its inspector). The list is grouped:

• Fade — a crossfade. The safe default.
• Slide and Wipe — from the left, right, top or bottom.
• Rotate — a 3D flip from any side, and a radial Clock Wipe.
• Light Leaks — a flash of color between the clips, in warm, cool, pink, green,

amber or cyan.

Once a clip has a transition, a small button appears at its end. It opens the settings:

• Duration, in seconds.
• Timing — Linear moves evenly; Spring eases into place.
• Direction — left, right, up or down, for the transitions that move.
• Motion blur — softens the movement.

Change in that popover swaps it for a different one, or removes it. A transition overlaps the two clips, so a clip shorter than the transition can't hold one.

Track controls

Each track head has quick buttons — an eye to hide the track, a speaker to mute it (on audio and Main), a padlock to lock it so nothing on it can be moved or deleted — and a ⋮ menu with the full set:

Zoom

The slider on the right of the toolbar zooms the timeline; Fit to width shows the whole reel at once. Zoom in when you're lining up a cut to the frame, out when you're rearranging the whole thing.