ProVideo Coalition.com: the EDITBLOG on PVC by Scott Simmons

The next mode, and IMHO the thing that sets Avid Media Composer apart from all other NLEs, that needs exploring is Avid’s Trim mode. Trimming in general is a way to fine tune an edit once you have media in the timeline. In FCP, trimming is accomplished through manipulating edits in the timeline via click and dragging using different tools. FCP has a Trim Edit window but it is clunky, painful and seems to be rarely used. You can think of the Avid Trim mode as an easy and very interactive way to fine tune your edits. It performs via JKL scrubbing, the trim buttons, + and - values on the keypad and click and dragging as well. Trim mode provides realtime feedback in the Source/Record monitors as well as the timeline. No matter which method you are using you will see a little line move with the clips you are trimming instead of the playhead as you make that trim.

That tiny line is an amazingly interactive way to monitor your trims in realtime

Let’s make a simple type of trim that an editor makes all the time, performing a split edit (or a J cut) where the audio precedes the edit. In our sample timeline I want to take the audio on A1 and A2 roll it backwards. I haven’t placed any audio in the timeline other than clip 02 but if you have audio in all of you clips it will act the same. There’s several ways to enter Trim mode and trim the audio in this scenario:

The most straight forward way to enter Trim Mode is to hit the Trim Mode button, defaulted on the Avid keyboard to u

. There’s also a Trim Mode button at the bottom of the timeline

. To trim a specific edit move the playhead to the edit and press the u key. Once in Trim Mode you will see little pink trim rollers appear on the edit

. If you entered trim mode and saw that the pink rollers have appeared on the V1 track the press the 8 key to turn off V1 or click the V1 selector in the patch bay. Once in Trim Mode you can toggle tracks on and off without ever leaving the mode. This is another feature that makes it very powerful. Once you have your trim set up to adjust the audio and make your split edit your timeline will look something like this:

You will also notice that the Composer window has changed a bit. The tic marks in the mini timelines below the Source and Record monitors have disappeared and little purple Trim Counters have appeared below the Source/Record monitors to keep track is how many frames have been trimmed

You can now create your split edit in a number of different ways. You can move the cursor over the rollers (the arrow will change to a roller icon itself) and click and drag the edit, you can hit + or - a timecode value on the keypad (in this case for a J-cut it could be - 24) or you could use the four default trim buttons on the keyboard: m , (comma) . (period) /

. M and / will move an edit forward or backward 8 frames in a 24 fps project and 10 in a 30 fps project and the , & . keys will move the edit one frame. But by far the most powerful way to trim an edit is using JKL scrubbing. With the edit ready for a trim hit j to trim the edit back. Notice the little trimming line begin to move instead of the playhead as you see the media in the source monitor begin to roll backwards. Even if you are only trimming audio you will see the video move as a reference, another very powerful feature that is lacking in FCP’s trim window. After rolling the trim back for about a second you have made the split edit:

Next, while still in Trim Mode, deselect A1 and A2 and select V1. You’ll see that the rollers have moved to select an edit in V1. Let’s move that selected edit down a few edits later by hitting the s key. The a and s keys

are defaulted to the Go To Previous Edit, Go To Next Edit keys respectively. By using the s key to move the trim down we can jump from edit to edit and not leave Trim Mode:

In my example I have moved the trim to the edit between 03 and 04. Now just play with your edit using JKL scrubbing. You can scrub the edit back and forth as well as double and triple speed the trim. This type of trimming is what FCP calls Dynamic Trimming (it has a toggle button to turn it on and off in the FCP Trim window). It was added to FCP in an upgrade after the software’s introduction and while it did make the Trim Edit window more Avid-like it still doesn’t work nearly as well. This type of trim is a dual-roller trim in that trimming takes part on both sides of the edit and the overall duration of the timeline isn’t being affected. A dual-roller trim is like using the Roll Tool in FCP. This is where the philosophy of Avid and FCP differ. FCP wants you to select a tool and then use that tool in the timeline, usually with a lot of mouse interaction. Avid wants you to enter a mode and continue to work in the timeline using your normal keyboard playback keys. If you notice Avid Media Composer doesn’t have any kind of tool palette at all like FCP or Adobe Premiere does. Hence the reason it has modes. Apple has always promoted FCP as “mode free editing” and while that may make the app easier to learn initially there is a lot of power in Avid’s modes, Trim Mode especially.

It’s also important to know how to perform a single-roller trim, or what FCP calls a ripple edit which is performed with the Ripple Tool. To perform a single-roller trim make sure you are still in a double-roller trim and click either the A or B side in the Composer, A being what is now Source monitor and B being the Record monitor. This will select a single-roller trim and this can be seen in the timeline as the edit now appears with a single pink roller on the side you selected. In my example I selected the B side, by clicking the Record monitor, so my roller appears on the right:

The edit set up for a single roller trim

With this single-roller trim selected use any of the above methods (click and drag, keypad, JKL scrubbing) to perform the trim. A trim to the right (using the L key) will “take up” media in clip 04, making clip 04 shorter and shortening the overall length of the timeline. A trim to the left (using the J key) will “let out” media from clip 04 and make the clip and the timeline longer. By trimming to the left you can let out media from clip 04 until there is no media left in the clip.

Clip 04 trimmed out to include the entire clip in the edit

Instead of actually clicking in the Composer window to choose the type of trim you can also use the default of the p [ ] keys to select the A, B or both sides to trim

. p will trim the A side, [ both the A and B side (a dual-roller trim) and ] the B side. It’s just another way to work very quickly in the Avid trim mode while keeping your hands firmly planted on the keyboard.

Trimming on the fly is especially important as well. Once in Trim Mode you can press the space bar to preview the edit. At any time during the preview you can hit an IN or OUT key and Avid will readjust the edit to where you hit IN or OUT. It can be a great way to place an edit on a beat of music or just to place an edit by feel as you are watching your program. It’s a way of making an edit trim that is not really possible by clicking and dragging in the timeline.

These few steps are the basics of using the powerful Avid Trim Mode. Please continue to experiment by adding more layers of video, trimming different tracks at the same time and just playing around in general. As I have said IMHO the Avid Trim Mode is one of the most powerful tools of any non-linear editor available on the market. And it’s used for the guts of an edit, assembling your story and fine-tuning that edit in a very fast and efficient way. To go into extreme depth about Avid Trim Mode would require much, much more time and type so look up Trim Mode in the Avid help files to learn even more. But above all just play with it as that’s one of the best ways to learn how it works.

Q and A with Bunim/Murray’s Mark Raudonis about their recent Avid switch

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If you haven’t heard they have moved from FCP7 to Media Composer

Back in January news broke that reality television producers Bunim/Murray were switching their post-production facilities from Final Cut Pro to Avid Media Composer. This probably didn’t come as a great shock to anyone who follows post-production as the release of Final Cut Pro X had left many people (especially those…

Kicking the tires on the Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 Multicam update

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The ease of setup and managing multicam clips makes this the best FCPX update yet

As we all know by now Apple released their promised update to Final Cut Pro X that added multicam. It’s only been a week and there’s already a lot of articles and tutorials about how…

Avid now lets you edit video on your iPad for US$4.99. Should you?

Allan Tépper | 02/02

A first look at Avid Studio for iPad, and an extrapolation as to what it can mean for pro video editors in the short and longer term.

I was privileged to find out a few hours in advance of the public announcement of Avid Studio for iPad, since Avid contracted me to translate and localize the press release, as fortunately they often…

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Scott,
Thanks for the link. I’ve heard of the site, but guess I’ve been a little lazy in learning a new software. Feel a little bit more inspired now!
Best,
Ra-ey

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/02 at 10:22 PM

I’m scared. LOL.. I really need to learn Avid Though!!!

Posted by raymondroman on 07/02 at 11:45 PM

Great article, Scott. It was very easy for an Avid newbie like me to follow. I made sure to bookmark it for future reference.

Posted by Jon Chappell on 07/04 at 12:49 AM

Great work Scott. Even for an someone like me - with thousands of hours driving an Avid, I managed to learn a few things.

Posted by Dylan Reeve on 07/04 at 01:52 AM

Great resource Scott!
Just last week I found the AVID MC Trial a gem. My first reaction to MC 3.5.1 is, OK I remember a similar scenario just a few years ago. AVID MC were resting on their collective laurels and just wasn’t keeping up with what some of the market needed, and so some of the market went with Final Cut Pro. It had(has) some great stuff to offer! Now we are living it all over again, tables turned 180 degrees. Apple is now resting on their “Pro-App” laurels and AVID has come to the table with formidable foe and great tool with lots of features and compatibility that frankly FCP should have built in months ago. Example: AVID actually handles XDCAM like it is supposed to be handled with true Proxy support. OK sorry about the rant, just really happy with the way MC 3.5.1 feels, its got that new editor smell too.
Cheers!
j

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/13 at 07:37 PM

Brilliant write up - you REALLY know these two programmes.

I however am utterly biased having been hitting brick walls and a massive slowing down of scattered unintuitive sequence of key-presses in FCP that Avid achieves far quicker for the same result. There isnt a plethora of options in Avid - generally only what they consider to be the best ‘client paying by the hour’ way!

I have been delighted by the many more helpful ways in which FCP operates but have also been disgusted by some of its shortcomings (cant save to bin say a 3 layer custom of keyframed plugin ‘house style’ effects/transitions (with audio Fx too) to quickly drop over any cut! ; trimming doesn’t show incoming/outgoing frames (unless you inaccurately mouse drag or add a bizarre additional standalone viewer window); weak custom user settings support for us freelancers switching suites often; never shows you that a clip has had CCR or an effect applied - its not just one editor per project you know!!! Also Easy Setup is an absolute laugh as anything called ‘easy’ usually is!

Currently wildly preferring Avid in an industry ‘freelance editor’ based scenario; it is undoubtedly quicker and with better trimming. However FCP excels in other, more user friendly but less mission critical situations and does that very very OFTEN!

Hey ho - I’m paying the mortgage for a month now on FCP so I hope to love it more soon!

D (future fruit fan!?)

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/21 at 01:48 PM

Apple is now resting on their “Pro-App” laurels and AVID has come to the table with formidable foe and great tool with lots of features
How do I go about becoming a freelance editor/writer?
Freelance Jobs

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/18 at 10:13 PM

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