How to divide clips in Final Cut Pro X?

Question

Level 1

19 points

How to divide clips in Final Cut Pro X?

I'm looking at Final Cut Pro X for the first time. I imported a 30 minute DV file and it now is a single clip in my project. I can't figure out the right way to divide it up into multiple clips. If I view the clip in the filmstrip view or in the TimeLine, I can select a range, but I can't figure out how to make that range it's own clip.

I tried using the blade when looking at a clip in the timeline view, but I'm not actually seeing the results I expect. In the timeline view of the clip I can see that the clip is divided where I've used the blade -- but in the clips view it still appears as a monolithic clip -- my edit in the timeline seems to have no impact in the clips view. How do I take that subclip from the clip's timeline and either just add that subclip to the project's timeline or just promote it to be an independent clip in the clips view?

What am I missing?

Posted on Jun 21, 2011 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 19, 2017 2:06 PM in response to Russ H

Five years later... here's the deal:

Import all your long clips.

Create a new project into which you drag all the long clips.

Use the blade to slice up and rename all your segments.

Create compound clips out of all of them and save them to the same event as the longer clips.

Create a new project into which you can pull in and arrange your trimmed clips.

Have fun and make mistakes.

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Answer 2

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Jun 19, 2017 2:11 PM in response to articulatedworks

You could do that, but it's completed not how the application is designed to work. That's the way you might edit in legacy FCP or other applications, and you can make FCPX work like that, but it's sure a long way around with a lot of renaming and compounding.

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Answer 3

Jun 19, 2017 4:41 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I use Russ's method for breaking up one long clip into useable separate clips in FCPX. Make selection using click-hold&drag, or marking in and out points using the I & O keys, then the F to save as Favorite. Re-name in list is easy. You can make your selections singly or a all at one time, then re-name them. Here's a link to a good video explanation.

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Answer 4

Jun 21, 2011 12:52 PM in response to Todd Wells

I want to know the same thing. I have a 53 minute file that I've used the blade to divide up but I can't get it to export anything but the whole 53 minutes, not just a 5 minute clip that I want.

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Answer 5

Jun 21, 2011 12:56 PM in response to Todd Wells

I think you can use keywords the same way used to be able to make sub-clips. Well, sort of.

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Answer 6

Jun 21, 2011 1:45 PM in response to Todd Wells

I haven't had a chance to play with FCP X yet, but if it operates the same way iMovie does (god help us) - you drag the rubber band (yellow bounding band) around the in and out points you want for the clip and just drag it down to the timeline.

That's how it works in iMovie, not sure if they kept that consistent in FCP, but it definitely takes some relearning of editing technique.

Hope that's helpful.

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Answer 7

Todd Wells Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 21, 2011 2:10 PM in response to Sean Huck

Thanks for contributing, but that's not quite what I'm talking about -- I know you can do that. The problem is that clip selection/range is temporary. I want to divide up a clip before I know where in the timeline different parts are going to go, then be able to drag those parts (new clips) into the timeline. In my example, the 30 minutes of footage is pretty disparate -- taken entirely different places, but with scenes in each place. I'd like to at least divide it into reasonable chunks first. In earlier Final Cut versions you could make these subclips.

Looking further into keywords, I guess that works. You select a range in the clip viewer, then Mark->Show Keyword Viewer (or cmd-K), then type in a keyword and that will show in the Event Libary as a selectable keyword. This isn't *quite* what I was looking for, but I suppose it can be a work-around in the meantime. Really I'd like to just be able to arbitrarily divide a clip into two clips wherever I want.

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Answer 8

Jun 21, 2011 2:17 PM in response to Todd Wells

Ah, I understand what you're trying to do now. You actually want a separate clip from a master clip.

What if you assigned a keyword to the range you selected, and then saved it as a Smart Collection? Could you then drag either the keyword clip or the smart collection into your timeline? A little screwy, but might work...

http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.0/#ver68416335

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Answer 9

Jun 23, 2011 5:08 AM in response to Sean Huck

Maybe creating a Compound clip might be the answer

Make the selection & RMB - Make Compound clip

Afterwards, you can add it to a smart collection to make it more organized.

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Answer 10

tlslip

Level 1

0 points

Jun 8, 2012 5:56 AM in response to Todd Wells

Hi, better late then never!!

I've just started using FCP and have think I have the same need to split/divide/cut a long clip into smaller clips, which can then be cropped as required.

Up til now i've been using Ulead video studio on PC, and have found FCP more difficult and less intuitive to use, but think i've stumbled onto the best/easiest way??

Open up the 'select' drop down box (am not sure if that's what it's called??), and select the BLADE option, then just move the point in the clip where you want to make the cut - then just click, and the original click will be split/divided/cut into two.

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Answer 11

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 8, 2012 7:13 AM in response to Todd Wells

Probably the most simple way is to use the Favorite command on a selected part of the clip and rename it. Pretty fast actually in list view (F, re-name).

Good luck.

Russ

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Answer 12

fox_m

Level 6

13,270 points

Jun 19, 2017 7:07 PM in response to Todd Wells

waited too long to post... 😝

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