Slipping with Trim Mode

Slipping is part of the trimming set of features. It is used for shifting a shot's contents to reveal earlier or later material. It has a brother, called Sliding and it has a cousin that can also Slip a shot, except it does it without being in Trim Mode. All of this is covered in this appendix, but let's begin with Slipping.

Slipping allows you to adjust a shot in your Sequence to reveal earlier or later material from its source clip without changing the shot's duration. First, here's what Slipping a video segment (the FRANKY segment), along with the audio that belongs with it, looks like in the following screenshot:

After the list of steps to perform a Slip, below, you will find an example that illustrates what Slipping is doing.

Method 1 is a very fast way to enter Slip Mode (also known as Slipping) and methods 2, 3, 4, and 5 are important to know in case you need to Slip the first or last Segment (shot) in a Sequence where lassoing may not work.

• Method 1: Lasso while in Trim Mode or Source/Record Mode:

  • In this instance, you'll be lassoing a very specific direction (see earlier in the Enabling and configuring the Trimming Tools recipe for details on lassoing). You'll lasso from right to left entirely around a Segment in order to tell Media Composer that you want to Slip it. You can lasso around just a video Segment, or just the audio segment(s), or you can lasso both the video and the audio that goes with it if the two need to stay in sync. It's important to note that while Media Composer will allow you to lasso from right to left around multiple Segments that are next to each other, here I am talking about lassoing only one segment and any others that belong with it (for example, a video segment and the audio that belongs with it, as with the FRANKY shot in the next screenshot):

    

• Method 2: Double-click while already in Trim Mode:

  i. Enter Trim Mode at any transition.

  ii. For the Segment (shot) you want to Slip, place the cursor at one of its transitions, either the head or the tail. For emphasis, you will be placing your cursor either on an existing Trim Roller or in the location where a Trim Roller would appear if it were there (see the next screenshot).

  iii. Pay close attention to the cursor icon. Make sure that the little piece of film that extends from the roller is facing the Segment you want to Slip. In the next screenshot, I want to Slip the shot of FRANKY. So, before I double-click, I've made sure that the cursor icon's piece of film extends towards the shot of FRANKY:

  

  iv. When the cursor's icon is facing the Segment that you want to Slip, then double-click, in order to enter Slip Mode.

  v. If you need to select an additional segment(s) in order to stay in sync (for example, you've initially entered Slip Mode on the video segment, but now want to include the audio segment that belongs with it), you can either Shift + double-click on the audio segment(s) as you did with the video segment or you can enable the required Track Selector(s).

• Method 3: Shift + click to configure the Trim Rollers while already in Trim Mode. The Shift + click method to configure the Trim Rollers is explained earlier in this appendix in the Enabling and configuring the trimming tools recipe.

• Method 4: Using Segment Mode:

  i. Enable either Overwrite/Lift Segment Mode (red arrow) or Extract/Splice-In Segment Mode (yellow arrow). It doesn't matter which one as this is just being used to make a selection.

  ii. Select the video Segment you want to Slip. If there is audio that belongs with that video, then Shift + select that Segment(s) as well. Note that you can slip audio and video separately if/when needed.

  iii. With the Segment(s) selected, press/click the Trim Mode button on the keyboard or on the interface and you will be placed into the Slip configuration of trimming.

• Method 5: While you are in Trim Mode, right-click on a Segment and, from the menu that appears, choose Select Slip Trim.

Now let's take a closer look at the configuration of the Trim Rollers as well as the display that is presented to us when we're Slipping in Trim Mode.

The Rollers – frequently, people will describe Slipping as when the Trim Rollers are on the inside of the segment. Rather than saying that the rollers are on the inside, I prefer to point out that the rollers are touching only that segment. The idea here is that whatever shot the Trim Rollers are touching is the shot that is being affected. This will become even more apparent when I talk about Sliding just a bit later.

The Four Image Display – when you're Slipping a video segment Media Composer will display four images.

In the screenshot below, we are Slipping the FRANKY Segment, and the the images in the display are the following:

• A is the last frame in the ARTIE segment

• B is the first frame in the segment you're Slipping (the FRANKY segment)

• C is the last frame in the segment you're Slipping

• D is the first frame in the BANDIT segment

  

What's happening – first, when you slip, you are not changing the duration of the shot that is in your Sequence. What you are doing, however, is shifting (Slipping) what images and/or audio is referenced (played) from the original Master Clip during that same amount of time. The following screenshots will take you through an example.

The following screenshot illustrates all the frames that are within a Master Clip of a ball rolling across the floor.

The screenshot below shows the shot of the ball as it was originally edited into the Sequence.

In the screenshot above, I've grabbed the Trim Roller and dragged a bit to the left. During the Slipping process, Media Composer displays a ghosted outline of the segment. Often this is confusing. What that ghosted outline is telling you is that it is looking (referring) to earlier or later material within its original Master Clip. In this instance, as I Slip to the left, the ghosted outline is telling me that it is looking at earlier material from its Master Clip.

The previous screenshot shows the result of Slipping the shot to the left, revealing earlier frames from the Master Clip. For emphasis, the duration of the FRANKY shot has not changed, but now we see earlier frames from the Master Clip.