Can you edit without a mouse or trackpad?
That's the challenge our guest Sam Mestman tackles this week with Ripple Training host Steve Martin.
Executing commands with the keyboard is almost always faster than using a mouse or trackpad input device, so the more you know, the faster you can edit. Most editors likely know the legacy FCP shortcuts that still work in Final Cut Pro X like J-K-L for playing, rewinding, pausing, and fast-forwarding or reversing through clip, and I and O for setting ranges. But even keyboard masters will learn a few tricks from Sam on today's MacBreak Studio.
Starting with reviewing clips, and using nothing but the keyboard, he navigates the Libraries List, quickly moving from one event to another, opening events, and selecting specific keyword collections or smart collections. The trick here is combining the Shift, Tab, and arrow keys. From there he moves into the browser, where he moves from clip to clip, plays, marks ranges, rates clips, and even renames favorites without ever reaching for the mouse or the trackpad.
From there he adds selected clip ranges to his project with the E key to perform append edits; it's also good to know W for insert edits, Q for connect edits, and D for overwrites. Add the Shift key to backtime your connect and overwrite edits.
Once he had a rough assembly, he moves to trimming clips in the project, again entirely with the keyboard. You can navigate to edit points with the arrow keys, select the outgoing, incoming, or both edit points with the bracket and backslash keys; and then adjust the edit by entering frame values, tapping the period or comma keys, or even editing dynamically while the project plays.
You can trim the head or tail of a clip without selecting anything by using the Option modifier key with the bracket keys, but to be even more efficient, Sam shows us how to remap our keyboard to execute that very common edit with a single key close by our fingers.
If you take a little time to memorize these shortcuts, you'll be surprised how much faster you can review and mark clips, build a rough edit, and do fine trimming.