Three-Point Editing

In the Assembly phase of the edit process, you saw how to select a part of a video clip and add it to the sequence at the position in time where the playhead is on the timeline.  The basic editing process involves marking 3 points in time to set the start and length of the clip to edit into the sequence and the position it will be added; this is why it is called Three-Point Editing.

1. In Point: marks the start of the clip you will be adding
2. Out Point: marks the end or length of the clip
3. Playhead: sets the point in the sequence where the clip will be added

However there are lots of different ways you can mark the three points; for example the In and Out points can be on the timeline itself and Premiere will use the Playhead in the Source Monitor as the third point.  This is really useful if you know exactly where you need to place a clip in your edit and you want to replace a specific part of what is already in the sequence.

One reason you might do this is if you want to keep a line of dialogue in the edit but you want to show it from a different camera angle.  If you've filmed your scene from multiple camera setups and have an alternative take of the line, you can "patch" it over the top of the edit to show a different point of view.

In the example edit below, there are three clips on the timeline.  An establishing shot showing the male character on the phone, a cut to a woman sitting in a chair who stands up and leaves frame right; and a final shot showing the woman entering from the left to finish off the scene.

In the second shot, both actors have lines and take turns in the dialogue.  On set, the sound recordist has wired the woman's microphone into one channel of the sound recording (the Left channel) and the man's microphone to the other channel (the Right).  This is a very common way of recording the sound of two actors in the scene.  Dialogue doesn't have to be recorded in stereo, a mono track will do.  So its possible to use a lapel mic for each actor for the clearest sound and record the two actors at the same time straight into the camera.  At the same time there will probably be a Boom mic operator recording one or other of the actors into a separate sound recorder.

You can actually see the different lines of dialogue in the sound track.  Each time the woman speaks, there is a peak in the Left channel on the timeline and each time the man speaks there's a peak on the Right channel.

So the dialogue is switching between the two characters, but the picture in this clip is always of the woman.  What if we want to cut to the man delivering one of his lines?

Because we have a  visual clue from the sound waveform, we know exactly where the line of dialogue is; all we have to do is select that part of the timeline and replace it with a shot of the man saying the same line.

To select on the timeline, we can use IN and OUT points exactly as we would in the Source Monitor.  To mark In and Out on the timeline, click on the timeline window to make it active then just press the I Key and O Key where you need the points to be.

In this case that means just before the man's last line of dialogue and just after, using the sound wave as a guide.  The selected portion of the timeline will be highlighted.

We now have two of the points we need for an edit.  For the final, third point, Premiere will use the Playhead in the Source Monitor.  Now (as long as the Track Targets are set to V1 and A1) when you do an Overwrite edit the new clip will replace just the part of the timeline that is highlighted.

Using the IN and OUT points this way round makes it really easy to replace a line of dialogue with a different shot taken from another angle.

Multicam Editing in Premiere

Live events such as sports and concerts are often filmed with many different cameras from many different angles at the same time.  This gives the editor material to cut together but also ensures that as much of the action as possible is recorded.  Even in feature film projects there are situations where the action can't be repeated, especially for action sequences such as car crashes, explosions.  Shots like that are a good candidate for Multi-camera filming.

Because multi-camera is used so often, Premiere has specific tools to edit this kind of project. The first step is to make sure all the clips are in time with each other by synchronising the videos.  Professional film shoots will use high-end cameras which can share timecode signals and will start and stop recording at exactly the same time so all the clips will automatically be in sync.

For low budget shoots, on the other hand, the best if not very accurate way to get several videos in time with each other is to have some kind of visual signal recorded by every camera.  The ideal solution is a film clapper board but, failing that, just a crew member clapping their hands will do.

The important thing is that all the cameras can see the sync signal -- if that means pointing the camera at the signal then panning it to catch the action then that needs to be planned in to the shot.

To start editing, import all the clips into Premiere as usual.  It is a good idea to create a new Bin for each shot to keep the clips from all the cameras together.  Once the clips are organised they need to be loaded into the Source Monitor one by one to line them up on the visual sync.

First Clip of a Multicam sequence cued up to the Visual Sync frame.

Use the playback controls J K L or the LEFT and RIGHT Arrow keys to get the video as close to the hand clap as possible.  Once you are on the right frame, put a marker on it by pressing M then do the same thing for the rest of the videos.  Make sure that the markers are all as close to the same frame as you can get them.

With all the clips marked, select them all from the Bin by holding the SHIFT key and clicking each one till they are all highlighted.  The order you select them in is important!  The last clip you pick will be the master clip.  While you can switch from one video to another in the edit, the sound will come just from the master clip unless you tell Premiere to cut the sound as well.  Usually you would pick the clip with the best, clearest audio to be the master.

With all the clips marked and selected, RIGHT Click on any of the clips and select Create Multi-Camera Source Sequence from the menu.

A pop-up window will appear with the various options for creating the new sequence.  Most of these only apply to Professional cameras which are able to synchronise themselves.  To sync to the markers, just make sure that option is selected then, from the menu next to it pick the name of the marker you want to use.  If you haven't named your marker, this will be something like Unnamed Marker 1

If this has worked, you should now have some extra items in your project.

Click on the new Multicam sequence to open it in the Source Monitor.  You will see all your videos arranged in a grid.  Some of the pictures may be blank since the videos all start at slightly different times.  Immediately do an Overwrite edit to put the whole clip onto the timeline then move the playhead back to the start of the clip.

Before we can actually start editing, we need to make some changes to the Programme Monitor to see and record the multi cam sequence properly.  First, set the Monitor into Multi-Camera mode by clicking on the small wrench icon and selecting Multi-Camera from the menu that appears.

Next, to make things a bit easier, we will add the Record button to the button bar at the bottom of the Monitor window.  To customise the buttons, click on the small + to the lower right of the window to bring up a palette of the available buttons.  Then drag and drop the Record button to next to the existing playback controls.

With everything set up, we are ready to edit.  Unlike single camera editing, with multicam, we will be editing while the video is playing back.  In exactly the same way that a TV studio director will switch from one camera to another during a live broadcast, Premiere lets you choose your camera angle "on the fly".

To capture the camera switches, we need to be recording the playback.  Press the Record button, then press the Play button to start the sequence.  As the playback happens, you will see all the angles on the left of the Programme Monitor and the selected angle on the right.  The preview on the left will have the selected angle marked with a red outline as you are recording.

You can click on another clip to change to a different view while you are recording.  However a quicker way to switch cameras is by using the number keys along the top of the keyboard.  The keys 1 - 9 correspond to one of the cameras in the multicam sequence.  Pressing the right number will switch straight to that camera.

You won't see any cuts in the timeline until you get to the end of the sequence and the playback stops.  When it does you should see lots of clips which reflect the camera selections you made.

Programme Monitor during recording.  The clip being recorded is outlined in red.

At the end of the recording, the cuts show up in the timeline.

If you look at the audio track A1, you'll notice that the sound is not cut -- the whole track is taken from the master clip.  This is usually what you want.

With the edit in place, you can go back and use the Trimming tools to fix the timing of the cuts.  Just be aware that you only want to move the edit point so the only kind of trim you need will be Roll trim which will keep the timing and synchronisation correct in the rest of the sequence.

Also if you change your mind about which angle you want, you can Right click any part of the sequence and select a different angle by choosing Multi-Camera -> Camera #  where # is the number of the camera you want to use instead.

Right click and choose a camera from the menu to pick a different angle.

QuickTip: Audio Mixing in the Timeline

One more Final Cut quick tip today guys!

You probably know that you can fade audio tracks in or out by adding a "Fade" effect to your clips in the timeline.  But you can do the same thing much quicker by using Clip Overlays and Keyframes.

You can turn on Clip Overlays by pressing the Toggle Clip Overlays button underneath the timeline.  The keyboard shortcut for this is ALT and W.  When you turn this option on, Final Cut puts a pink line over the audio tracks.  The pink line is a volume control for the sound clip measured in Decibels (dB).  Pulling the line down with the mouse will make the whole clip quieter and pushing it up will make it louder.  Even better, you can also adjust the volume of parts of the clip by adding keyframes to split the line into sections.

To add keyframes to the volume, turn on Clip Overlays then select the Pen tool from the tool box by clicking on the icon at the bottom -- it looks just like the Pen tool icon in Photoshop.  The quickest way to activate the Pen tool is to press the P key.  Switch back to the normal mouse pointer by pressing A for Arrow.  If you hold down the Pen icon you'll see that there are actually three versions of the tool.  For now you'll only need the standard Pen but once you've mastered that, play around with the others to see what they do.

Once you have the Pen activated, just click on the pink Clip Overlay line to add keyframes.  If you want a fade in or fade out, you'll need at least two keyframes -- one to set the clip's normal playback volume and one to turn the volume down to silence.  When you're measuring volume in Decibels, silence isn't Zero like you might expect.  Instead silence is defined as minus Infinity Decibels.  Put two keyframes near the end or begining of the sound clip then press A to turn the Arrow tool back on so you can pull the line up or down.  Moving the line sections nearest to the ends of the clip down to -inf dB (minus Infinity) will create a Fade-In or Fade-Out Effect.  You should see that the line makes a smooth curve from the playback volume down to silence.  This gives the best sounding fade effect, but you can set this to go in a straight line if you want.

Fade-In and Fade-Out added to a clip by using Keyframes in the Timeline

QuickTip: Timeline Overlays

Hi again,

Here's a very quick tip for customizing the timeline in Final Cut.

You can show your video and audio clips visually in the timeline by using the Timeline Layout Menu.  Click on the small, right pointing arrow below the timeline to open the Layout Menu.  The top two options are off by default.  "Show Audio Waveforms" will draw the sound waves in the green audio tracks.  This gives a really quick visual guide to spot things like audio peaks.  "Show Video Filmstrip" will add still frames along the whole video track giving a quick way to spot where the action is.  It can sometimes make the edits hard to see though so you'll probably want to switch it off occasionally.

Turning on both options makes the timeline look like this:

QuickTip: Resize Final Cut's Timeline

Here's another quick tip for Final Cut that will make all your editing work easier.

While you're editing your movies, you'll spend most of your time working with Final Cut's Sequence Timeline.  By default, the timeline shows you the minimum you need to edit your clips and sound track, but there is a lot more information that can be shown.

The basic timeline looks like this:

Along the bottom of the timeline window are some really small buttons which control the display

Timeline Track Height

 This little panel controls the size of the video and audio tracks in the timeline.  Selecting the different sized boxes makes the tracks taller or smaller.  You can also press the SHIFT and T keys to cycle through the different track height settings.



Clicking the tallest box makes the timeline look like this:

You can zoom into the timeline to focus on a  few shots or zoom out to get an overview of the whole sequence.  There are few ways to zoom.  First, you can use the Zoom Slider control at the bottom of the timeline.  Moving the small grey pointer to the right zooms out, showing you more of the edit and moving to the left zooms in to focus on a shorter time period.

Zoom Slider

There are also keyboard shortcuts for the same thing.  Pressing the CMD key and = together zooms in while CMD and - will zoom out.  If you have a Mac laptop, you can zoom in and out by doing a two finger 'pinch' gesture on the trackpad just like on an iPad or iPhone.


Zooming in completely lets you see individual frames of video which is really useful if you have an 'orphan' frame left between clips caused by a messy edit.  Final Cut draws a dark grey highlight over the time code strip of the timeline representing one frame right next to the play head like this:

The final way you can zoom in and out of the timeline is to use the tags at each end of the window sliding bar at the bottom of the timeline.  Pulling the tags apart stretches the sliding bar showing more you more of your edit (zoom out).  Pushing them together does the opposite.

Window Slider: Use Left and Right Tab to Zoom In and Out

MP Freeze

Hi Guys,
Some of you have been having problems exporting your soundtrack from Final Cut.  If you've had issues with the sound freezing and stuttering in your Quicktime files, check to see if you've got any .mp3 files in your edit.  Final Cut really doesn't like editing mp3 sounds 'natively' ( i.e. without converting it to some other format first).

You should always use uncompressed sound in your Sequence.  Compressed formats such as mp3 cause lots of problems; for example, Final Cut has to render the file before it will play back slowing down the overall editing process, mp3's are often so compressed that the sound quality starts to suffer, and finally, lots of mp3's use variable bit rate encoding which can lead to timing and sync issues.

No professional editor would use mp3's on their soundtrack so you shouldn't either!  The same goes for other compressed formats such as OGG, AAC, or WMA.

Always use something like Soundtrack Pro or iTunes to convert your compressed files into AIFF files before you start editing in Final Cut.

Check the blog post about converting files to AIFF using Soundtrack Pro.  Your audio file settings should always match the settings of your Final Cut project.  For the DMW this will be set to: 16 bit integer, 48000 samples / second.

Happy Editing!

QuickTip: Using Sound FX

Final Cut Studio comes with an extensive library of sound fx which are installed on the Macs in the workshop.  They come as "Core Audio File" or '.caf' files.  The easiest way to find them is to use the magnifying glass tool in the top right corner of the menu bar and search for the .caf file extension:

Click on "Show All" to browse through all the available sound effects

Double click the effect you want to open it in Soundtrack Pro and select 'Save As' from the file menu to export it as an AIFF file:

Finally copy the new file to your EditShare project folder and import it into Final Cut and you're done!