This Could Be Why You Suck at Using Final Cut Pro

"Why I suck at Final Cut Pro? Who are you to say I suck? How dare you, Dylan." Yes, the title is a bit rough around the edges. But I honestly think that once you know what's in this tutorial, you'll edit faster, more efficiently, and with fewer headaches. Because people who "suck" at Final Cut usually just haven't learned to control the magnetic timeline. Let's fix that.

Deleting without collateral damage

Want a clip gone, but it has a title and sound effects attached? Plain delete takes them all. Shift Delete creates a gap clip in its place, keeping everything attached exactly where it was. To fill the hole later, drag new footage onto the gap and hit Replace From Start.

But what if you want everything to actually close up and snap together while KEEPING the attached media in place on the timeline? Enter the most powerful key in Final Cut: the grave key (the tilde key). Hold it and press delete: the timeline sucks in, and the attached clips stay planted right where they were.

The grave key's greatest hits

Slip edits: press T for the trim tool and scroll inside a clip to change what media shows. Normally the attached media moves along; hold the grave key while scrolling and it doesn't.

Moving clips: a clip with a title above and a sound effect below won't move cleanly. Hold grave and drag it wherever you like; the attachments stay behind. Combine with the position tool (press P) plus grave to pull a clip out and leave a gap with the media still attached.

Lock it on: hold grave, tap Shift, and the override stays on hands-free (watch for the orange icon). Tap grave again to release.

No grave key on your keyboard? Non-US keyboards often lack it. Press Option Command K, duplicate the default command set, search "override connections," and reassign it to any key you like (the number 1, whatever feels good). Same power, your key.

Suck your B-roll INTO the storyline

I constantly see timelines with the talking head in the primary storyline and a skyline of B-roll floating above it. Not wrong, but less useful than it could be. Select the B-roll and press Option Command Down Arrow to drop it into the primary storyline. Now you can slide it with the trim tool (hold Option to slide position without changing duration), extend your talking head cleanly (Shift Delete a B-roll piece first so the edge snaps fully), and, the big one, add transitions between talking head and B-roll, which is impossible while the B-roll floats above.

Fix the connection point

You drag out the start of a clip and a whoosh sound effect that belongs elsewhere moves with it, because it's connected to the part of the clip you're trimming. Hold Option Command and click the clip where you want the connection anchored instead; now trims leave it alone. (The grave key also works here, but knowing how to move connection points is worth having in your pocket.)

Master the magnetic timeline and its escape hatches, and you officially no longer suck at Final Cut Pro. (Thanks to Motion Array, an all-in-one platform for templates, stock footage, music, and overlays with unlimited downloads, for sponsoring the video version of this tutorial.)