- Reference 4.1 Understanding a Project
- Exercise 4.1.1 Creating a Project
- Reference 4.2 Defining the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.2.1 Appending the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.2.2 Rearranging Clips in the Primary Storyline
- Reference 4.3 Modifying Clips in the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.3.1 Performing Insert Edits
- Exercise 4.3.2 Rippling the Primary Storyline
- Reference 4.4 Timing the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.4.1 Inserting a Gap Clip
- Exercise 4.4.2 Blading and Deleting
- Exercise 4.4.3 Joining a Through Edit
- Exercise 4.4.4 Refining Some Sound Bite Edits
- Reference 4.5 Editing Above the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.5.1 Adding and Trimming Connected B-roll
- Exercise 4.5.2 Understanding Connected Clip Sync and Trimming Behaviors
- Reference 4.6 Creating a Connected Storyline
- Exercise 4.6.1 Converting Connected Clips into a Connected Storyline
- Exercise 4.6.2 Appending Clips to a Connected Storyline
- Reference 4.7 Editing Below the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.7.1 Connecting a Music Clip
- Reference 4.8 Finessing the Rough Cut
- Exercise 4.8.1 Adjusting the Edits
- Exercise 4.8.2 Adjusting Clip Volume Levels
- Exercise 4.8.3 Connecting Two Additional B-Roll Clips
- Exercise 4.8.4 Refining Edits Using Cross Dissolves and Fade Handles
- Reference 4.9 Sharing Your Progress
- Exercise 4.9.1 Sharing an iOS-Compatible File
- Lesson Review
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Exercise 4.5.1 Adding and Trimming Connected B-roll
B-roll is the editor’s friend. Sometimes referred to as cutaways, B-roll clips allow you to smooth out discontinuity in your primary storyline, and in this project, they will help you hide the jump cuts and soften the audio edits made to the sound bites. Furthermore, good B-roll content may also include great natural sound audio, or nats. An editor can use the nats to cover a tight audio edit, such as the one you now have with the word “filming.”
Let’s start by resetting the interface and searching those keywords you applied earlier to quickly locate B-roll of a hangar door opening.
If necessary, reset the interface by choosing the Default Workspace from the Window > Workspaces menu, or press Command-0.
In the Lifted library’s Primary Media event, select the Hangar Keyword Collection.
To ensure that you are seeing all the hangar clips, double-check the Browser’s sorting and filtering options.
In the Browser, from the pop-up menu, choose Hide Rejected; and then ensure that the search field is clear of any criteria.
From the Clip Appearance pop-up menu in the Browser, set the Zoom control to All, the Group By pop-up to None, and Sort By to Name.
With the environment properly set up, you will search for the first clip of the hangar door opening.
In the Lifted library, verify that the four clips are displayed with the Hangar Keyword Collection selected.
The first clip you want is DN_9390.
Skim the clip to refamiliarize yourself with its contents.
This clip starts in the dark before the hangar door opens. Mitch walks in from the left, crossing to center to preflight the helicopter. The clip is currently 13 seconds long. Let’s trim the clip down before connecting it to the primary storyline.
In DN_9390, mark a start point by pressing the I key after the director says, “Action.” Your start point should be at 1:50:43:00.
Mark an end point by pressing the O key after Mitch has dropped down to inspect the camera. Your end point should be at 1:50:49:06.
The clip is ready to edit into the project.
In the Lifted Vignette project, cue the playhead to the beginning of the Timeline.
Cueing the playhead tells Final Cut Pro where the hangar clip belongs time-wise in the Timeline. In this case, locating that point is easy because it will be the first shot in the project.
You will edit this clip into the project so that we hear Mitch speaking while watching the hangar clip. You can do this by connecting the video clip in a higher lane.
In the toolbar, click the Connect button, or press Q.
The hangar clip is stacked into a lane above the first sound bite. Let’s review the edit to see the results.
Cue the playhead to the beginning of the project, and play the Timeline.
You see the hangar and hear the hangar motor while also hearing Mitch’s sound bite. The video hierarchy rule makes the video in a higher lane visible, while mixing and playing all the audio content in the clips.
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Colorful Clips
Remember the roles you applied to the Browser clips at the end of Lesson 3? Each role and subrole is assigned a customizable color that tints the clip representations in the Timeline. As you progress through this book’s exercises, the role each clip plays within your project, especially the audio role, will be visually apparent. Video clips with attached audio are tinted according to the assigned audio role. You’ll learn more about the power of roles in Lesson 6.
4.5.1-A Connecting the Second B-roll Clip
As you can see, the DN_9390 clip extends over the second sound bite. That’s OK for now, so let’s look at the next B-roll clip to add to the project.
In the Browser, skim DN_9465.
In this clip, Mitch enters the hangar from the right side, approaches the helicopter, and then kneels to inspect the camera. Although Mitch enters from the opposite side of the hangar, you can set a start point as he’s kneeling to inspect the camera. With finessing, this clip can be made to match the previous shot of Mitch approaching the helicopter.
In the Browser, mark a start point at 2:37:33:17 when Mitch has started to kneel to inspect the camera.
Now you need to locate the Timeline point at which this clip can be matched to the previous edit.
Cue the project playhead over DN_9390 where Mitch has started to kneel at the helicopter’s camera at 00:00:05:07.
Click the Connect button, or press Q, to make a connect edit.
The second B-roll clip stacks into a higher lane above the previous edit. When two connected clips will impact one another, Final Cut Pro automatically avoids a “clip collision” by moving one of the clips to a different lane. The edit still cuts to the second B-roll clip at the connection point.
Review the edit by skimming back to the middle of DN_9390, and then pressing L.
Does the action of Mitch kneeling flow from one clip to the other? If not, this situation is easily corrected.
In the Timeline, select DN_9465. Press the , (comma) or
(period) key to nudge the clip left or right, respectively, until the action of Mitch kneeling appears to be one smooth movement.Once DN_9465 is in place, you can ripple trim the end of DN_9390 to lower DN_9465 into the same lane. Although the video plays as expected, the overlapping audio may not be desirable.
Ensure that snapping is turned on (the Snapping button in the Timeline is blue).
Drag the end point of DN_9390 to the left until DN_9465 drops into the same lane.
With snapping turned on, the end point of DN_9390 will snap to the start point of DN_9465.
Notice that DN_9465 extends down the Timeline. We’ll trim that clip after connecting a third B-roll clip.
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4.5.1-B Connecting the Third B-roll Clip
Let’s connect one more B-roll clip before analyzing what you’ve created.
In the project, cue the playhead over clip MVI_1055 when Mitch says “nobody” at 00:00:09:02.
You’re telling Final Cut Pro to make a precise start edit based upon the contents of the primary storyline. Now let’s find a clip for that edit.
In the Browser, locate clip DN_9470, a close-up of Mitch inspecting the camera.
Mark a start point about halfway through the clip at 2:41:27:21 as Mitch turns the camera counterclockwise.
Set an end point as Mitch’s face moves halfway behind the camera at 2:41:30:06.
Press Q to connect this clip to the primary storyline at the playhead.
Although the edit cuts nicely to the close-up, in your Timeline, DN_9465 resumes playing after the close-up ends.
Trim the end point of DN_9465 to the start of DN_9470 so that the two B-roll clips are sequential.
Now DN_9465 doesn’t give an encore performance.
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