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Making the First Edit

This chapter is from the book

Reference 4.2 Defining the Primary Storyline

Every project in Final Cut Pro is based around the primary storyline, identified by the dark stripe across the Timeline. The primary storyline contains the clips that drive your project. For a documentary, a combination of sound bites and a narrator’s VO could constitute the primary storyline. For a project that starts with a montage, you could consider placing the music intro in the storyline, followed by the on-camera host. The primary ­storyline is flexible content-wise.

By default, clips in the primary storyline interact with each other and incoming clips. This interaction is similar to that of two magnets: attraction or repulsion.

When you drag a new clip from the Browser to the far right of the project, that clip is attracted to the end of the primary storyline, and “magnetically” snaps to the preceding clip.

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Dragging a clip to the end of a project

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The storyline appends the clip to the project.

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Dragging a clip between two existing clips creates a repulsion that pushes the existing clips far enough apart to insert the new clip.

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Dragging a clip to a project for insertion between two storyline clips

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Positioning the clip on the storyline clips reveals an insert bar, and a gap for the clip is created.

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The clip is wedged between the storyline clips.

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These two behaviors form the basic concepts of the magnetic storyline: As you add clips, shift clips around to change their order, or remove clips, the magnetic storyline keeps the clips snapped together, ensuring that the clips play back-to-back in a continuous stream.

Knowing the basic concepts of a primary storyline as the magnetic backbone of a project, you can start assembling your first edit.

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