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Lesson Info

Tips for Navigating the Timeline

So we're back in the timeline and I just wanna make sure everybody understands how to navigate through the timeline and that many of you might still be using these buttons here they're called Transport Controls to play, fast forward, rewind, put your markers in. If you are doing that, you shouldn't do that. Because you should be using the keyboard. So we're gonna start with basic keyboard controls. So take your right hand. I'm looking all over. Everybody got their right hand up. Put your thumb on the space bar. On your virtual space bar if you don't have the computer in front of you. And then that space bar is just play and stop. These three fingers will naturally fall on J, K, and L. And very conveniently J, K, and L allows me to play forward by pressing the "L" key. "J" will allow me to play backwards. If I tap it multiple times I can rewind fast by multiple taps on the "J" key. Multiple taps on the "L" key allow me to fast forward. So I don't have to go ahead and grab the playhead a...

nd move it back and forth. The "K" key is a stop bar/pause button when I'm playing. But if I hold down the "K" key and I press "L" it will move me forward a frame at a time every time I tap it. And if I hold down "K" and "L" simultaneously, I will move forward in slow motion. So I can be very precise. And the same thing for a rewind. I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna just get to a different clip 'cause he's just looking back and forth. So I'm gonna fast rewind. Here we go. This is really good to do on still photographs to show this example. So hold down the "K" key, tap "J", I'm going backwards a frame at a time. Hold down the "K" and the "J", slow motion. So now I'm gonna mark a clip. I'm in my timeline but let's go ahead and load a clip into our viewer. Actually let's go ahead and use the dancer. And so I could scrub back and forth here, but I'm gonna use my J, K, and L. So I wanna go ahead and I wanna start right there in this initial pose. I want this to be an In point. And right above J, K, and L is the "I" key which is your In point keyboard shortcut. So I press the "I" key and now I have the In point marked. I can hit play with the space bar. I can be very precise. I wait until we get right there. Lift the leg and Out, so I hit the "O" key. J, K, L, I, and O. I have already marked my clip exactly where I want and I'm ready to insert this clip into my sequence. Now my playhead is parked in kind of a random area so I do wanna go ahead and switch over to my timeline. I have left my mouse at home and I can't find the trackpad on my laptop. That's a problem. But I wanna be able to switch between my windows. How many times have you wanted to switch between your windows? and this is something that really does get you. Your playhead is here and you go make this the active window and you click to make it the active window and what happens to your playhead? It jumps to a location that you don't want it to be. You know, so maybe my playhead wants to be there and I gotta make this an active window and I click on it. I never use, never say never, I rarely use my mouse to select my windows. What's the order that we normally edit? Normally we start in the project pane, project window. With our footage we bring it into the Source Monitor, we throw it into the timeline, and then we end up putting it as seeing it in our Program window and occasionally we go ahead and we modify with the Effects tab. Well, being the shifty guy that I am, the Shift key is very useful. If I go "Shift + 1" my first step. Active window, Project. "Shift + 2" Source "Shift + 3" My Sequence "Shift + 4" My Program Monitor "Shift + 5" My Effects tab Makes a lot of sense. Easy to remember. Shift + 1, 2, 3, 4, and allow you to jump to each of those windows. So I'm gonna jump to window three. And I wanna do an insert edit right here. And I could have jumped to three used J, K, and L to position it. If I don't have an In or an Out point marked it will of course put the clip where the playhead is positioned. We learned that it will put the clip on the track that is targeted. I'm not gonna tell you how to do this you're gonna have to research it, but you can even set keyboard shortcuts to target your tracks. Give you something to think about for the advanced Advanced Class. I'm ready to go. J, K, L, I, and O Still haven't touched my mouse. I want to do an insert edit. Directly under J, K, and L are the "Comma" key and the "Period" key. Think of the comma as wedging something in and that's an insert edit. Think of the period as the full stop and you're gonna stop and just put something in. I'm gonna go ahead hit the "Comma" key, boom! I have a problem. Told ya, I love problems. I not only have an In point and an Out point in my source. It thinks I have an In point and an Out point in my destination. Which I do. So I said, it uses where the playhead is and if you don't have an In and Out point marked and silly me, I didn't realize I had an In or and Out point marked. So if that is the situation I could say, "Oh ignore the In or ignore the Out". 'cause this only needs three points, but the truth is I don't even wanna have to go there. So I'm gonna go ahead and cancel. I need to remove my In and Out point. We learn in I, out O, there's an optional way to do that. If I want to remove it. With that window selected "Shift + 3" I go "Option + "I" removes my In point. "Option + O" will remove my Out point. I'm lazy. I just undid that. I wanna remove them both at the same time. There's a keyboard to do that. But first, before I tell you what the keyboard is to remove it is, I'm gonna tell you the keyboard shortcut to mark a clip with an In and Out point. 'Cause I don't wanna go to the beginning of that clip and mark an In and at the end of it mark an Out. No, I'm a pirate. These may sound silly, but you will remember stuff this way. And when you're a pirate and you bury your treasure how do you mark the spot? X Right. If I hit "X" it will mark an In and an Out point above the clip where the playhead is parked. So X marks the spot. Instantly do an In and an Out point. If I wanna remove that Out point and In point simultaneously once again our friend the Option key, "Option + X" will simultaneously remove the In point and the Out point at the same time. One has to actually be able to hit the X key when looking. "Option + X" There we go. And I can remove it. So now I have the In and the Out point parked, uh marked on my top clip. I'm gonna now jump up. And you know maybe I'll put it in between a clip. Look at that. I don't have to move my mouse with J, K, and L. The Up and Down key is gonna jump me between all my other points. I don't even have to worry about it. So the Up and Down key will jump you between edit points. Now, while we're doing that. Do you notice that when I'm jumping it's actually stopping also on track 2? I'm not at a point. And some of you are saying, "Why does it work for him, but it's not working for me?" It's working for me because this is an active track because that's turned on. If that is turned off and I do Up and Down it doesn't stop there. So that's something to keep in mind. If you want it to stop on that track. It needs to have, uh be active. Or, you need to have taken this course and learned the secret that if you hold down the Shift key whether a track is active or not when I use Up and Down it will stop at every edit point no matter what. It's really good to use the right direction when looking at it. Come on. See? So the Shift key with Up and Down not only stops at the edit points on the main track. On selected tracks, it will stop at every edit point along your sequence. This is actually a really good thing to do right before you export your show. I jump to every single edit point. Because then I can discover if I have a flash frame of a gap or just the piece of a little clip hanging there. Because I'll see it. I won't necessarily see it when I'm playing. So "Shift + Up and Down" arrow keys, very, very, very useful. So let's go down. I've marked my In and Out points as a reminder 'cause it's been so long since I've done that. Marked an In, marked an Out with J, K, L, and I, and O. Now I'm gonna go ahead, hit the insert key, which is the Comma. I'm wedging it in. And I'm good to go. It put that right there exactly where I wanted it to be and moved the playhead. So I can actually go through all of this and not have to touch my mouse a lot. Now there are some editors out there that says if you touch a mouse you're not an editor. You know, they're very purist. I don't believe that. If my hand is on the mouse and it's faster, I'll use that. If the keyboard's there and that's faster, I'll do that. If you get a paycheck for editing something. You're an editor. And that's what I'm all about. Getting a paycheck and being able to edit faster because you say "Well you know, it saves a little time." If you can save let's say a mere 12 minutes a day by using shortcuts. You're like, "why do you pick 12 minutes?" That's an hour a week. That's 50 hours a year. 52 technically. Okay, that's like a week of vacation. By just using some keyboard shortcuts versus using that mouse. So try to use some of these. And I don't want you to, this is what I don't want. I don't want you to sit here and watch this show and try to remember every single keyboard shortcut and every single trick that I'm teaching you. As you're working you'll remember, "You know he said something about navigating the timeline." and you'll go back and you'll watch that section of the show and you'll learn that. Don't try to remember it all and use it all at once. Learn it in chunks. Say to yourself "You know what? "I'm gonna learn five keyboard tricks today." and you know how I'm gonna pick those five tricks? I have sat down and when I've been editing the last couple of days. Every time I've done something with a mouse or a drop-down menu, I've made a check mark. And I'll look down and say "Wow! I have used that menu key 17 times "to use the undo." I better learn that "Command + Z" is undo. That's how I learn my keyboard shortcuts. Not some random thing that I may never use. But if I find that I keep right-clicking on something or going to a drop-down menu and there's a keyboard shortcut associated with it then it's worth learning. So I want you to keep that in mind.