As an editor, I constantly ask myself, how do I get from here to there?

One road post to look for are transitional words like but, however, and therefore. These words connote change. They pivot the narrative making them great words to cut on.

“I was was walking to the store, but” – walking-to-the-store image.

“I decided to go home. ” – relaxing-at-home image.

As a general rule, I cut after the transition.

The grammar of language and the grammar of editing flow together. Don’t overlook their connection.

The Global Governance Monitor: Public Health is the fifth installment of the Council on Foreign Relations Global Monitor. I produced the six-minute overview.

Driftless: Stories from Iowa by Danny Wilcox Frazier was nominated in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Documentaries category.

Surviving the Tsunami: Stories of Hope was nominated in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Current News Coverage category.

Congratulations also go out to my good friend and former colleague Bob Sacha whose MediaStorm collaboration with Reuters, Times of Crisis, was also nominated in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Current News Coverage category.

The project includes brilliant interactivity designed by Tim Klimowicz.

For a full list of nominees see the Emmy Award website.

You can read it here on the MediaStorm blog.

In my haste to announce my new film Three Women, I neglected to post two other projects recently released on MediaStorm.

The first is Lisa Robinson’s Snowbound, which I produced and edited. The project was a bit of a departure as it’s the first non-narrative piece I’ve produced at MediaStorm.

From the description:

Snowbound explores the mystery of a winter landscape. This journey may lead one to discover a sense of peace in an often uncharted world.

View Snowbound here.

The second project is Airsick by Lucas Oleniuk. This piece was originally produced by the Toronto Star. At MediaStorm, I re-edited a handful of scenes and helped oversee the creation of new titles by the abundantly talented James Gundersen.

See Airsick here.

Here’s the essence:

People tell me they want to produce work like MediaStorm. You can. Yes, we are fortunate to work with many incredibly talented photographers. But the storytelling techniques we use in our work are not revolutionary. They’re the same techniques described by Aristotle in his Poetics, 2000 years ago. What’s different is that we work our stories. We watch and re-watch literally dozens of times, replacing soundbites, removing the inauthentic, rearranging, restructuring, often for weeks at a time. Sometimes it feels endless but in the end, it works.

And it can for you, too.

Read the rest of the article here.

Command-Shift-A Deselect all.

Contorl-B Enables/Disables a clip. This is a great one to use when trying to compare clips. Stack one on top of the other and use Control-B to turn your alternative on and off.

Control – and Control = Raises or lowers the audio levels 1db, respectively. Make sure to either select your clip or place the playhead over it first.

F Loads the clip under the playhead in to the Viewer.

J, K, L These are the transport keys. They move you through the timeline. J is backwards, K stops, and L is forward. Pressing J or L twice in quick succession doubles the speed. Also, holding J and K together moves backwards in slow-motion while K and L moves forward in slow-motion.

Keypad ‘del’ The keypad delete key performs a  ripple delete, collapsing the space left after removing a clip. The result is the same as using shift-delete but simpler.

X Marks an In and an Out point on the clip beneath the playhead.

Option-V Paste attributes. First, select the clip whose attributes you want to copy (command-C). Then, paste on to another clip using option-V. Great for pasting size and level attributes between clips.

TTTT or Shift-T Changes the cursor to overlapping arrows. Touch any clip and all clips forward will be selected. Great for moving around large chunks of an edit.

+ and [number] Moves the selected clip forward – to the right – by an increment of the entered number. - and [number] moves the selected clip backwards, or to the left.

For more Final Cut  keystrokes, check out my twitter feed @fcpkeystokes where I post a new shortcut every day.

First, create a new layer. Stack the new footage of top of the old.

In Final Cut, right-click on the top layer and choose Composite Mode>Difference. In After Effects, use the layer’s drop-down Mode menu.

Your footage will take on an inverted and somewhat psychedelic appearance. But here’s the great part: when the two versions are perfectly aligned, they will cancel each other out and your Viewer will become black.

Credit to Chad Perkin’s and his excellent After Effects CS4 Beyond the Basics on lynda.com.

To help me through this new terrain, I compiled a list of shortcuts. Try them out for best results.

View Timeline One Frame at a Time
Page up moves current time indicator one frame backwards.
Page down move current time indicator one frame forwards.

Two Ways to Select a iLayer
Type the layer number on keypad to select it.
Use command up and down arrow to shuttle through the layers, respectively.

Jump to Current Time Indicator
If you’ve zoomed in too far and can no longer find the current time indicator, hitting d will bring you back to it.

Jump to In and Out a Layer
First, make sure the clip is selected.
I will jump to the in point of the clip.
O will jump to the out point of the clip.

Set In and Out for Playback Work Area
B sets in point for playback.
N sets out point for playback.
The Playback Work Area are the indicators above the timeline that determine how much of your composition will play back.

Jump to In and Out of Playback Work Area
Shift-home jumps to the beginning of the work area.
shift-end jumps to the beginning of the work area.

Make Playback Work Area the Size of all selected layers
command-option-b

Jump to the Beginning and End of Timeline
Home key jumps to the beginning of the timeline.
End key jumps to the end of the timeline.

Transform Property Shortcuts
S show scale
T show opacity
A show anchor point
R show rotation
P show position

See More than One Transform Property at a Time
Hold down shift while hitting another keyframe shortcut.
For instance, if the scale property is currently displaced, pressing shift-r will show the scale and the rotation property.

View Keyframes
U shows all properties that have key frames applied.
UU shows all values that have been changed from their default.

Insert Keyframe Shortcuts
option+transform property shortcut key will place a keyframe in the timeline for that attribute.
For instance, option+t will insert an opacity keyframe at the current time indicator position.

Replace Footage in Timeline While Keeping the Original Keyframes
First, select track with media to be replaced.
Next, hold down option as you drag replacement footage on to selected track.
The media is replaced but the keyframes will remain intact.

Markers
Markers are added using the Layer>Add Marker menu
K jump forward to marker
J jump back to marker
Right-click to delete or lock
Drag to move
* (star key) makes marker on audio timeline

Move Beginning or End of Footage to Current Time Indicator
[ (open bracket) moves start of clip to current time indicator.
] (close bracket) moves end of clip to current time indicator.
These keys do not  change the length of the clip.

Trim Layers
option [ (option-open bracket) – trims the footage so that the clip begins at the current time indicator. Shortens the clip’s time.
option [  (option-close bracket) – trims the footage so that the clip ends at the current time indicator. Shortens the clip’s time.

RAM Preview to Hear Audio
Keypad 0