Using the Roll Tool in Final Cut Pro 5

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is C.J. representing expertvillage.com. In this clip I am going to show you how to utilize the roll tool. Next up is the roll tool. Now the roll tool is the fourth one down in the tool pallet and it is represented by these two little circles of couple of lines coming out of the side. The quick key for that is the r key so go ahead and select that. You will notice now that there is an x at the bottom right corner of your cursor. Well that means that there is nothing selectable there. Now with this tool you don't actually select clips. Like if you notice I can't select these clips at all. This tool is used in between your clips where there is an edge of 2 clips, like right here; it's called an edit. Now you notice that x now goes away so if you click there, you will notice now too that it also has selected just this little area. It has kind of a crescent to it. Now what happens is when I click and hold that and then drag it, it is actually shifting both of my clips. Let me make this window a little bigger here so you can see what is going on. As you can see now in the canvass, I have both of my clips being shown. The one on the left is showing my out point for the left clip. The one on the right is showing my in point for that clip. Now as I drag it, you can see down the time line that this little bar moves with me. This bar is like kind of a half transparent brown bar represents that edge of these two clips that we are moving around. Okay so if you notice when I move to the left and I let go, it changes where one clip ends and one clip begins. So you can shift it around anywhere in this clip. It is really good when you have to make slight changes to where one clip begins and one clip ends. Like let's say obviously this clip starts here but then soon after goes to another shot. I want to start just on this other shot. So I grab this clip here and I drag it till that building is gone and that other shot starts. In fact, I want to make it start where it starts moving so I am going to keep dragging there. Now it starts moving so I am going to let go. Now this clip will continue until this other clip comes in. That's just much much easier than to where I don't want clicking a blade tool and coming in and cutting it and deleting it or using the selection tool and dragging it and snapping and you got to snap this other one. It saves you a step. That's all it does. "