After you add clips to the timeline, you can easily cut them to adjust their durations or remove unwanted sections. The most basic edit is a straight cut. The term comes from the film editing process of cutting a filmstrip with a razor and attaching a new “clip” with glue. Each time you cut a clip in your project, it’s split into two clips. You can cut one clip at a time or multiple clips at a time.
Cut a clip in the timeline
In Final Cut Pro, click the Tools pop-up menu in the top-left corner of the timeline and choose Blade (or press B). The pointer changes to the Blade tool. Tip: To switch to the Blade tool temporarily, hold down the B key. When you release the B key, the tool reverts to the previously active tool. Move the skimmer to the frame in the clip where you want to cut, then click. Tip: You can also cut clips while playing back your project. To cut clips on the fly, press Command-B at any time while your project plays back. An edit point appears as a dotted line where you clicked, and the clip is divided into two clips.
Currently I am loading all my old video tapes into FCPX. This will make editing so much easier and I have a backup at the same time. This is all working very nicely, but I run into a problem here: especially my older tapes with DV content load as a single clip. I would like to split these into distinct scenes so I can assign a proper name, tag people and correct the date. There seems to be no “blade”-command for clips in the event library as there is for clips in the time line. The only way I have found is to select the seven in the clip and create a new compound clip. When finished processing all the scenes in a clip this way, I can trash the original clip. This is a bit of a hassle, though. You simply assign (the same or different) keywords to each segment. Thanks for your reaction. Assigning keywords is only a minor part of the problem. Most of the time a complete tape is imported as a single clip that gets the date of import, rather than the recording date. I find this rather strange and maybe it’s a bug, but there you go. So I will have to change the dates and names of the “logical clips” in the single physical clip. I would think splitting that clip into sub-clips and changing the dates and names of the sub-clips is the only way to tackle this.
Reply to this Discussion! Here are 4 ways you can make split screens in Final Cut Pro to get that professional look without paying for extra plugins. Split screens are a fantastic way to show off a product, conduct an interview or just add some extra flair to your footage.
Split screen techniques in Final Cut Pro
Technique #1 is by far the easiest and fastest way to create split screens in just 3 clicks. Stack 2 clips in your timeline. Right click on the top one and select Transform. Hold down shift, click and drag the clip to the right. Select the bottom clip, hold down shift, click and drag the clip to the left. Split screen! Drag the transition edges to the left to shorten them to about 1 second and 14 frames. In the Transition inspector, set the Border under Edge Treatment to 0. Play it back and boom. Split screens! You can get a ton of different looks by playing around with the on screen controls and published parameters. Click and drag up and then select the bottom clip, click and drag down. Split screen! Go to the Replicators/Clones section in the Transitions browser and drag and drop Duplicate on to both clips. Drag the transition edges to the left to shorten them to about 1 second. Select the top transition and in the Transition inspector, set the Origin to Upper Left and set Shape to Rounded Rectangle. In the bottom transition set the Origin to Lower Right and set Shape to Rounded Rectangle. Hit play. Oooh. Smooth lookin split screen!
Technique #2. Mask and you shall receive. Add a third clip to your 2 stacked clips and make them all the same duration. Disable the top and bottom clips by selecting them and pressing V. Go to Effects, then Masks and drag and drop Shape Mask onto all 3 clips. Go to the beginning of the clip and in the video inspector set Radius X to 0, Y to 540, Curvature and Feather to 0. Set a keyframe for Radius X, move forward 10 frames and set Radius X to 320. By the way, these numbers will only work for 1080p footage. Just divide your footage width by 6 to get your X value and divide your footage height by 2 to get the Y value. Enable the top clip, go to the beginning. In the video inspector set Radius X to 320, Y to 0, Curvature, Feather to 0 and X Position to -640. Set a keyframe for Radius Y, move forward 10 frames and set Radius Y to 540. Enable the bottom clip, go to the beginning. In the video inspector set Radius X to 320, Y to 0, Curvature, Feather to 0 and X Position to +640. Set a keyframe for Radius Y, move forward 10 frames and set Radius Y to 540. If the composition is off, disable the shape mask, right click on the viewer, select Transform and move your clip left or right. Enable the mask and adjust the X Position. Check it out. 3 screen split!
Technique #3. Reset your 3 clips and add one more. Select all 4 clips and in the Video Inspector set scale to 50%. Select your bottom video, right click in the viewer and select Transform. Move it to the upper left corner. Repeat for the other clips putting them in different corners. To get precise, enter values in the published parameters. Divide your footage width and height by 4. So the upper left corner is -480 and 270. Upper right corner is 480 and 270. Bottom right corner is 480 and -270. Bottom left corner is -480 and -270. Just think of the center as 0, 0. Anything below or to the left is a negative value. Go to Movements under Transitions and drag and drop Scale onto each clip. The clips above the timeline will be converted to a storyline and will have a transition at the beginning and end. You can delete the end transitions. Select all the transitions, press Control + D and change the duration to 20 frames. This looks pretty good but they all move at the same rate. Click and drag to select the top 3 storylines. Then press period 5 times to nudge them to the right. Unselect the second to the bottom storyline and nudge the 2 selected storyline 5 more frames. Select the top storyline and nudge it 5 more frames. Now the animation is staggered for a clean modern look. Split screens!
Technique #4 is a freestyle rap. This method will make your hands clap! Reset your 4 clips and add one more clip. Next, go to Generators and add a custom Solid Color generator underneath all your clips. This will be your border color. Right click on your top clip and select Crop. Use the corner handles to crop your clip and move the box to adjust your composition. Right click and select Transform. Move your cropped clip. Do the same for the remaining 4 clips working your way down from top clip to bottom. Have fun. Make different size rectangles and squares and leave some space between your clips. Just Crop, Move, Transform and Move until you get a layout you like. This technique of crop, move, transform is a new discovery for me. Now that you can see all 5 clips, make any final adjustments. Go to the beginning of the clips, select a clip and under Transform in the Video Inspector set a keyframe for scale all and set the value to 0. Move forward about 10 frames and set the value to 100%. Select that clip and copy with Command + C. Select the other 4 clips and Paste Attributes with Shift + Command + V. Uncheck Position and Crop then click Paste. Now all your clips have the same growing animation. You can adjust the animation timing by selecting a clip and opening the keyframe editor by pressing Control + V. Adjust the keyframes to change the start and end times and the duration. Freestyle split screens! Nice work!
You may want to check out this video my friend Chris made called How to mask moving objects in Final Cut Pro. Splitting a clip is perhaps the most used feature in any video editing software, and it’s essential to know how to do it for any project, be it an amateur video or a professional video project. The Blade is one of those video editing tools you’ll constantly use when working with Final Cut. 1. 2. 3. 4. Click on the Tools icon on the top left corner of the Timeline to open the Tools pop-up menu and change the Select Tool for the Blade tool. 5. 6. 7. Sometimes you might have trouble skimming the clip to find the correct position. 1. 2. 3. 4. You can split clips by inserting a different clip in the middle of the clip in your main sequence. 1. 2. 3. 4. The new clip will be inserted, creating a split between the two clips in the Timeline. The Position tool works similarly to inserting a clip. The difference is that it will split the clip by inserting another but overwriting parts of the original clip. 1. 2. 3. Click on the Tools pop-up menu and choose the Position tool. 4. 5. Sometimes we have many clips on the Timeline: a video clip, a title, and audio files, with all of them, already lined up. Then you realize you need to split them. Splitting each clip and reorganizing the project will take a long time. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. The split screen video effect is used to play two or more connected clips simultaneously on the same frame. 1. 2. 3. Select the video clips you won’t be editing first and press V. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Enable all the video clips and preview the project. Now the split-screen video should be fully functional. 1. 2. 3. 4. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Together with the split screen, splitting clips is one of the easiest things to do but also one of the most frequent actions when it comes to video editing. You can have as many clips in your split-screen edits as you want. Yes, you can move the clips in the Timeline just by selecting and dragging them along the storyline.
Additional tips for effective trimming
Use the Blade tool for precise cuts at the exact frame where you want to divide a clip. You can cut while playing back to mark in-the-moment edits, which is useful for cutting on dialogue pauses or action beats. For organizing long takes, consider creating sub-clips from a single long clip by splitting at natural scene boundaries and naming each sub-clip accordingly. This helps in tagging people, dates, or other metadata to keep your project well organized.
Every Way to Cut in Final Cut Pro (Beginner to Pro)
Practical workflow recap
- Place the playhead where you want to cut and choose Blade, or press B.
- Click in the timeline to create an edit point; the clip splits into two clips.
- To cut on playback, press Command-B during playback.
- For split screens, experiment with stacking, transforms, masks, and precise keyframes.
- When dealing with long clips, consider sub-clipping for better organization and metadata tagging.