Gaps between clips on the timeline

I wonder if there is a way to gain control of moving clips on the timeline. If I grab a video clip on the timeline and drag it left, it bumps the adjacent clip and moves it left. If I haven't let go of the mouse and move the held clip back towards the right, the clip I bumped doesn't go back to its original position. If I leave the held clip where I dropped it, there is now a gap, which looks bad and can mess with the playback in iMovie.
I would like a way to drag clips so that they butted up to the adjacent clip without moving it. I would also like a way to remove any gaps in one fell swoop.
I am relatively new to the app: but to remove a gap, the only (lame) way I can see to fix it is to manually move each clip to the right of the gap. But because the clips that I would bump can move, that screws up everything. There must be a better way.
thanks,
Jim

Catspaw's solution is a good way to remove all the gaps. Note that to see the gaps represented as "Black" clips (instead of gaps) you must view the Timeline in Clips mode. Click on the little rectangle icon above the left end of the Timeline.
Gaps disappear as you describe when you've previously added a gap by dragging a clip to the right. Creating that gap was probably a mistake, so losing it isn't usually a problem. If the gap appeared when you moved a clip right, the Edit > Undo Move command lets you undo that move.
If you created the gap intentionally -- to serve as a placeholder for a clip you want to add later -- you can make it "permanent" by changing its color from black to some other color. (With the timeline in Clip mode, double-click on the "Black" clip to change its color.) Now the gap won't disappear as you drag clips towards it.
All dragging functions are made easier by turning on these two features in iMovie preferences: 1) Snap to items in Timeline and 2) Play sound effects when snapping. When you drag a clip it's a lot more likely to land where you want it.
Karl

Similar Messages

Getting Rid Of A Gap Between Clips In The Timeline

A gap has appeared between clips in my timeline. I can delete, re-organise the clips but the gap remains. How can I remove this please ?
(and how can it happen?)
Ron

Sometimes I get what seems to be a gap but it's actually a glitch in the way the clip has renedered for FC. The original media is always fine so I trash the rendered clips (which is a menu command) and all is well. Best of luck!

How do I delete space between clips in the timeline.

I am adding several hundred photo's to the timeline. When I add them as a group, the the duration of each photo differs. I select a group of photo's, change the duration to 4.00 seconds and the clips change to 4 seconds but then there is a large space between each clip. Is there a way to select a group of clips in the timeline and have them connect to each other? How can I remove the space between clips?
Thanks for your help.

What you are describing happens when you have the position tool selected.
Hit 'A' to make sure you are using the select tool (also known as the 'Arrow' tool, hence the 'A' shortcut).
Unfortunately, your screenshots do not show which tool is active, but I am pretty convinced that that is your problem. Like Russ said, their look pretty similar to each other. But they work very differently.
Here is a picture showing the arrow tool (in blue):
And here is one with the Position tool (again, in blue):

Toggling between video clips (not audio clips) in the timeline

Hi,
I was wondering if there is a solution to this small inconvenience I am experiencing in FCP 5. When I have snapping enabled, and press the down arrow key, the playhead jumps to the next audio or video clip in the timeline. I am trying to find out if there is a way to jump between video clips only.
Thank you
-Peter

Thanks,
Do you know if there is a way to make the up/down arrows snap to only the video cuts on the video clips in the highest video tracks in the timeline? Thanks.

Is there a way to insert a specific gap between clips? (CS4)

I am trying to insert a 3 second gap in between about 15 clips on a timeline. I could do it manually, but it is sort of a pain. How can I insert a standard gap between clips?

I know of no semi-automatic way to do this--it's going to be some degree of manual work, whichever way you slice it. But this might help make it a little faster:
Drop all of your clips, end to end, in your sequence.
Switch to the Track Select tool; I believe the default shortcut is "A", but I might have changed that.
With the Track Select tool active, click on the second clip in your sequence to select it and all clips after it.
Using the numeric keypad on your keyboard, type in "+300" for three seconds, or whatever time duration you need, and hit the Enter key on the keypad. All of the selected clips will be moved forward in time three seconds. This will leave a gap of three seconds between the first clip and the group of following clips.
Go back to step #3 and repeat this as often as necessary to create the gaps. You should be able to mow through them pretty quickly in this fashion.

Exporting clips in the timeline with handles

Is there a way to export a selected clip in the timeline with handles? I know you can export all the clips in the timeline with handles using Media Manager, but is there a way to do it with just one clip?
I should ask- is there a quicker way? because I know one way is to drag the clip up to V2 and just manually extend handles to the clip and export it that way. I was hoping for a quicker method. I need to export some self-containted clips that I can reinsert for sending the sequence to Color.

Thanks. Snap is enabled.
I added 30 clips at once from the project bin onto the timeline. So I was really amazed that there were small gaps between some clips.When I tried to repair this (hold CTrl and move the clips to the left) the puzzle began. It happened that moving the clip only three frames to the left, I lost 15 seconds of the total. I discovered this was either a total loss of a clip (not he one I moved, but a clip say three clips to the right) or it was considerably shorter in time.
First I thougt it had to do with my good old dualcore (1.8Ghz), but on the new one (Quad 2.4Ghz) it is still the same.
This is the first time it happens (after 3 completed small projects).
From now on I will only drag one clip at the time to minimize the chance on this behaviour.
But you will understand, I'm not happy...
Rob

Loosing clips in the timeline with PE7

The good news, I got my quadcore 2.4 Ghz.
The bad news, the same problem as with my old PC.
Between my clips on the timeline is sometimes a small empty space (Why??). When I drag the clip 2 frames to the left (+Ctrl), suddenly a clip somewhere to the right vanishes or gets considerably smaller.
Ever seen before?
Adobe is making life not easier...
Rob

Thanks. Snap is enabled.
I added 30 clips at once from the project bin onto the timeline. So I was really amazed that there were small gaps between some clips.When I tried to repair this (hold CTrl and move the clips to the left) the puzzle began. It happened that moving the clip only three frames to the left, I lost 15 seconds of the total. I discovered this was either a total loss of a clip (not he one I moved, but a clip say three clips to the right) or it was considerably shorter in time.
First I thougt it had to do with my good old dualcore (1.8Ghz), but on the new one (Quad 2.4Ghz) it is still the same.
This is the first time it happens (after 3 completed small projects).
From now on I will only drag one clip at the time to minimize the chance on this behaviour.
But you will understand, I'm not happy...
Rob

Transition creates gap between clips

I place a transition between the two clips and it seems to create a large gap when the transition is in between the clips. Is this the way it is supposed to be? Just curious. Thanks.

Thanks Joe Blow.
That link describes changing the in/out points when dealing I think with the middle clip of three clips. I tried the technique but when I put the mouse (with that tool selected) over my clip in the timeline and dragged eithe rway, it only allowed me to start the clip earlier and with that only for a second or two. (It's possible my clip starts only 1 or 2 seconds earlier so I can understand that) but it won't allow me to start the clip later. I want to start it about 15 seconds later. Right now I'm only dealing with two clips with a dissolve transition between them until I figure this out. Also, if I change the in point of the clip I don't want the out to change. I realize that if I start in the inpoint later in the clip and the out point of the clip doesn't change then the over lenghth of the clip will be shorter and that theoretically everything to the right of the in point I'm adjusting should adjust left in the timeline. Is there a way to do this?
If I was clear, ignore this but as an example, I have a 10 second clip to start my timeline, then a dissolve transition into a 20 second clip. Now the timeline has a total of 30 seconds of video. I'd like to start the second clip 5 seconds later without affecting the out point. So if I do this the first clip will still be 10 seconds but the second clip will now be 15 seconds and the timeline will go from 30 to 25. (rather than staying at 30 and having the out point of the second clip adjust by 5 seconds)

Is there a way to copy & paste a clip from the timeline in one project in to another project?

Hello Popular Premiere Pontificaters,
I am using Premiere 6 on a Windows 7 machine.
Is there a way to copy and paste a clip from the timeline in one project in to another project?... I can copy my clip, but when I open the other project, it will not allow me to paste it in there... but I am able to copy and paste a clip within a single project. I tried everything... pasting in to a new video track and pasting in to an existing video track in the second project, but the paste option simply isn't there when I open the second project.
And if Premiere itself will not allow me to do this in any way, will a copy-paste clipboard type of accessory app allow me to do this?... if so, which is the best, trustworthy copy-paste app that is malware free?
Thanks,
digi

Hi Bill Hunt,
I just read the page that you provided about "Handles"... thanks allot for that ARTICLE. In your article and the subsequent article HANDLES, "Transitions Overview: applying transitions" linked from your article, it indicates (in PrE and PrPro anyway - I'm in Premiere 6) that transitions can be applied to non-Video 1 tracks... the paragraph below is a quote from that "Transitions Overview: applying transitions" article...
"Whatever is below the transition in a Timeline panel appears in the transparent portion of the transition (the portion of the effect that would display frames from the adjacent clip in a two-sided transition). If the clip is on Video 1 or has no clips beneath it, the transparent portions display black. If the clip is on a track above another clip, the lower clip is shown through the transition, making it look like a double-sided transition."
So this indicates that transitions can be applied to non-Video 1 tracks since it is referring to content in tracks beneath a transparent fade that would show through... and only non-Video 1 tracks can be transparent and have other clips "beneath" them in the timeline, right?
In the screenshot sample in your article at this LINK, I see the handles (referred to as B and E) and I can see in my monitor window how those handles would be represented by the two little bracket symbols { } ... you can see how they appear in my monitor window in Premiere 6 in this screenshot, and below, from a different thread that isn't related to this topic.
But I'm still trying to figure out how the handles can be applied in the non-Video 1 tracks in the timeline to insert a transition (cross-dissolve) between two clips.
Can you advise me on this?... I posted a separate thread HERE on this topic, but I haven't got any further with finding an answer.
Thanks so much for your article,
digi

Something happened, now I can't select clips in the timeline of my current project(in Elements 4)

I've been working on a project for a few days now, everything's been fine. Last night while editing, something happened when I was trying to add a transition between two clips. Now I can't select or edit any clips in the timeline anymore, and can't add new ones. When I click on the clips in the timeline, nothing happens. When I try to drag the select box around several of them, same thing. It acts like there's nothing to select. Same thing with right clicks, soundtrack mp3s, etc. The clips ARE still THERE though, and they all play fine in the preview screen in real time, and when I drag the slider back and forth along them.
All the clips are already rendered except the one transition I was adding when this started. When I hit 'Enter' to render, though, it says "Rendering 1 of 6 Audio Previews" instead of the usual x-number of video previews. I've not seen that before so it probably has something to do with all this.
It's ONLY with this one project. I can still edit and select clips in all my other projects as before.
I've already tried loading other projects and then coming back to this one, as well as closing the program and re-opening it. My current project is still stuck like this but the others are fine.
Please keep all this info in mind. This can't have anything to do with codecs or the clips being in the wrong format for the program. They're all regular AVI files and MP3s, I've been selecting and editing every single clip on this timeline dozens of times over the past few days with no problems. I'm just suddenly not able to select or edit them anymore or add anything new to the timeline, but they still play normally as previews.
I'm really hoping this is a simple thing where I've just tripped some setting and accidentally saved it that way and it can be easily changed back.

OK, then all that I suggested here:
Now, Exit from PrE, and Shutdown the computer completely. Wait a few moments, and then do a cold boot, launching PrE and Opening that Save_As Project. Do you now have the ability to edit the Clips on the Timeline?
If not, go to the location where you Copied the AutoSave folder, and view the files with Detail View ON. Then, look at the Date/Time of the files (probably will be 5 of them). Choose the last one written, Open that, and test. If no change, work backwards to the oldest.
If nothing is working, the only thing that comes to my mind would be an issue with the display driver, BUT that should affect all Projects, and not just this one. However, updating the video driver is always a good step, and should not hurt anything.
Note: many MP3's can cause all sorts of problems. I recommend always converting them to PCM/WAV @ 48KHz 16-bit, and replacing MP3's with those WAV files. One can use the great, free audio-editor, Audacity, to convert the MP3's.
If all of the above tests fail, let us know, and if you get any error, or warning messages, copy those down completely, and post those
all failed too?
If so, there is nothing that I can suggest. It seems that your Project is hosed, and is very likely not recoverable.
Sorry,
Hunt

How do I see every frame of a clip on the timeline in Premier ?

There are of course times when I need to see every frame of a clip to synchronize two clips. Imagine for example that you have a two camera shoot and both cameras were looking at a clapstick, or at a strobe. I want to put both clips on the timeline and zoom in to see every frame. Now I can align the two clips fo that one specific frame of each clip is over/under each other. However, when I have zoomed into the timeline it seems I can never zoom quite enough to see every frame What do I do to be able to zoome all the way in to the timeline so I can see every frame of the clips ? I haven't actually tried this yet with CC, but did with CS6 and it wouldn't do it.

I'm not knocking the idea of using the program monitor to place markers on sync points and using that to synchronize clips. It should be a very good solution.
What I am saying is that there are times when it would be advantageous to be able to see every frame of multiple clips on the timeline. When i first tried to do that I zoomed in and it looked as if it would display all the frames. I was dissappointed to find it wouldn't. As an editor who has done a lot of resynchronizing multiple camera shoots where there is no intentional visual sync cue, i can tell you it can be a big help to be able to see the frames as if we had a strip of film on each timeline. Sometimes we need to see several frames of each clip at the same time to make a decision about which frame represents the sync point, or to make the quickest possible decision about where to start and end a dissolve, or to chose which camera to use. In a scene shot with only one camera, there is no actual sync point. The action may have progressed slightly differently between shots. Being able to see 10 or 15 frames from each shot can help to make the quickest decision about how to line up the shots and where to do the transition. Would anyone out there say it would be a bad thing if Premier Pro could display every frame when we zoom all the way in ? It seems to me that it could only help. So i request Adobe consider it as a possible future improvement.
Here is an example, the last time i tried to see every frame in Premier. I had a scene I used Maya to create, series of Tiffs. This scene shows an object appearing as if arriving through a time or dimensional portal. The scene includes plasma popping and flashing. There are two different shots of the same moment in time. The shots are frame numbered. So if I could see the frame numbers from the original tiffs on the timeline I could align the shots that way. But of course I lose the frame numbers. The overall scene is too long, and rendering time too long, especially for 3-D 1080, to render each shot from the beginning of the scene, which would make synchronizing very easy. So i needed to sync to the flashing plasma in the scene. I though I had the shots lined up using a flash. It turned out they were not the same flash. So if i did a slow dissolve between shots, the flashes form each shot would not line up in time. What I needed to do is line up several flashes happening over a couple of seconds, so I coud verify the flashes were the same flashes. There are different numbers of frames between each flash, so if I got three to line up they would have to be the same flashes. I spent a lot of time trying to get these shots lined up. If I could zoom into the time line and see evry frame I could synchronize several clips by lining up the flashes, in just a couple of minutes. To do this with markers, marking say five flashes from each of four shots, it would take several minutes to do it before being ready to do the synchronizing. It's a workable solution, but is not ideal, a compromise.

How I can to replace a clip in the timeline?

Is there a command for to replace a clip in the timeline? In a recent project I have replaced some clips to hand, deleting the previous and draging the one new in the gap, but this method is dangerous because it is possible moving the edit also.

You could drag the new clip to a track above the one you want to replace. This gives you a bit more security before deleting the old one.

How can I lock video clips to the timeline?

Hello Apple discussion.
I know that holding down the command key disable ripping when triming.
But that doesn't work when deleting clips. It would be useful to lock videoclips to the timeline, so they keep their position.
Lock audio to playhead doesn't help the situation.
Thank you for your time
Attila

You cannot lock a video clip to the timeline. The program is designed so that when you delete a video clip, the other clips slide over to fill the gap. Otherwise you would have holes all over your project, or have to manually move them over. You would want to lock the audio clips to the non-deleted video clips, so that the audio slides over with them.
If you want to preserve the gap left by a deleted video clip, first insert in front of it a black clip of the same exact duration, and then delete the video clip. The black clip would hold all of the other clips in position, but leave you with a black hole to fill or delete. To make a black clip, separate two video clips on the timeline, and control-click on the empty space. In the resulting drop down menu, select Convert Empty Space to Clip. Then control-click on the black clip and in the resulting window adjust the time duration by overwriting the values in the time box and then clicking the Set button.

Rearranging clips in the timeline

Sorry, I am new a FCP.
If I have several clips in the timeline (e.g. 10 clips) and I need clip $7 & 9 to be in between clip #3 and 4 how do I move them? I want to be able to place them between clip number 3 and have everything else move forward in the timeline.
Thank you!

Click and start dragging a clip to it's new position with snapping turned on (it's the button in the top right of the timeline window that doesn't look like a figure 8... which also should be turned on if you're taking sync sound with it.
Before you let go though and drop it in the new position, hold down the option key and you'll see the little arrow that your cursor has become change to a curved arrow. With snapping on you'll snap to each edit point, and when this clip is between the clips you want it to be in, simply let go of the mouse button.
Jerry

Moving clips in the timeline

Hi
I would like to cut out a clip or two with CTRL + X to cut them out, but can I place the marker between two clips and insert them (not as overwrite)
Thanks
Ulf

Yes. You can use Clip>Insert to insert edit a clip into the timeline from the source monitor. If you mark an in point, that will be the point where the clip is inserted. If you don't have an in point marked, it will insert the clip from the playhead.
You can also do a paste insert (under the "Edit" menu bar item) if you have copied a clip previously. All these can be mapped to shortcuts.

Gaps between clips on the timeline

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