Most important thing to show the Avid editor using FCP is the FCP Help menu. It's the entire manual. Type "asymetric trimming." The example even includes nice color pictures.
Asymmetrical Trimming With the Ripple Tool
Asymmetrical trimming allows you to simultaneously ripple edit points on clip items in different tracks in opposite directions. For example, suppose you want to extend the Out point of a video clip item by 2 seconds. If you do this by extending only the video clip item, a 2-second gap is created on other tracks. If you select the In point of clip items on other tracks and use asymmetrical trimming, you can simultaneously extend the In points of the clip items, making them start 2 seconds earlier. The result is that the video clip item is 2 seconds longer, and the audio clip items fill in the gap because they are 2 seconds longer. Asymmetrical trimming is a convenient way to create a split edit between two adjacent sequence clips, but you can also use this feature with audio-only and video-only clip items. Asymmetrical trimming can be done either in the Timeline or in the Trim Edit window.
Tip: If you are doing a lot of asymmetrical trimming, you may find it helpful to turn off linked selection by pressing Shift-L or clicking the Linked Selection button in the upper-right corner of the Timeline. For more information about linked selection, see Chapter 14, ?Linking and Editing Video and Audio in Sync,? on page 219.
To create a split edit using asymmetrical editing:
1 Select the Ripple tool.
2 Hold down the Option key, then click the Out point of a video clip to select it.
Holding down the Option key while selecting an edit point selects only that point, ignoring any other items linked to that clip.
3 Hold down the Command key, then click the In point of an adjacent audio clip. Holding down the Command key while selecting an edit point allows you to add edit points to the current selection without deselecting previously selected edit points.
4 Use the Ripple tool to trim the above selection.
The video and audio edit points move in opposite directions, creating a split edit. Audio-video synchronization is maintained in both clips.
Note: In this example, Command-clicking the In point of a stereo pair of audio clip items results in adding both audio items to the selection. You can also Option-Command-click a single audio item to add it to the selection individually, without including other audio items linked to it. This can be especially useful for clips in which many audio items are linked to a single video item in the Timeline.
Craig Seeman
[
thirdplanetvideo.com]
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