Hi There,

Kind of random question, I wanted to do something kind of interesting with a piece of my timeline. To explain/make some kind of visualization. Imagine a drum being played at a constant and very rapid tempo. Now imagine a batch of clips beings played/cutting on the same rapid tempo (I hope this make sense, haha).

So I have about 100 clips, and I want to chop each one down to about 3-6 frames per clips, it doens't really matter where it is in the clip, because it will just flash rapidly. How do I do that in one swift move to create this 'flashing' type effect?

With so many clips to trim, I hope I don't have to do each one by one.

Thanks so much!

Have done this with stills, not with video but it should work the same.

Go to script mode in the bin that contains the clips

Select all the relevant clips

Step forward by say 50 frames using the "2" key (to get into the clip - for stills it's useful to add this if you want transitions between them, but then it's usually on screen for longer)

Mark in

Step forward by 3-6 frames using the "4" key

Mark out

You should now have all your clips marked with the same duration

drag to the timeline

done

regards

Brian

I add a couple of steps to Brians method.

After "Select all the relevant clips" and before "Step forward by say 50 frames...." to make sure the method works for all clips including any clips that I may have looked at and not returned to tthe start of clip, or have had any IO's marked on them already.

G key    to remove all Marks

T Key    to mark each end of all of the clips

Q key   to go to the inpoint / start of the clips

I do this for rapid cuts in succession:

Stack the video layers you want to cut between, as many as you need... if they need to sync, make sure they're in sync first. Otherwise, just stack random b-roll above your sync and audio tracks.

Create two "add edit" keys for your custom keyboard -- I tend to place these right next to one another, for example as the "3" and "4" keys on my Mac keyboard; now close your new keyboard setting to activate.

Select all the layers you wish to cut BETWEEN... doesn't matter which clip you'll eventually use, what you're doing at the moment is preparing the sequence so that your cuts will line up with your musical beat (you'll make clip selections from any of these layers LATER).

Now... and this is actually the easy part!... play your musical sequence. And with two fingers (like two-finger hunt-and-peck style typing), just alternate hitting one and the other of your "add edit" keys WHILE THE MUSIC IS PLAYING, tapping your two fingers IN TIME WITH THE MUSIC YOU WISH TO CUT TO. This will create a series of matching cuts-between-video-layers for you to work with, to time with your music.

NOW, you go back through your video layers and just pull the clip you wish to see, AT THAT MOMENT, down to layer one (I use segment mode editing, overwrite so it's sync-locked).

When you're done, your finished video cuts will all exist on layer one. You can fine-tune the beats/cuts by using trim mode to slip a frame here and there to taste. It's a little time consuming, but it's still very fast.

If you want to 'rehearse' before adding cuts to the raw sequence, then just hit playback and tap your fingers on your desktop in time with the music, until you feel confident that you can repeat the desired rhthym with your newly paired "add edit" keys while the sequence is playing.

That's the fastest way I've ever found to accomplish editing to rapid beats. The more you practice before adding the edits, the better your cuts will be and the sense of rythym. Good luck.

Whoa! That's pretty cool. I'm getting all the clips ready together in it's own sequence to do this before I put it back to the appropriate one. I will try all the options.

One more question, the footage was pulled into the sequence, and I don't like the order of it. Is there a quick function to select all clips, and have Avid mix them in a random order?