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129Final Cut Pro User Guide
Select clips and ranges
Selections and filmstrips in Final Cut Pro
A fundamental step in editing a video project is choosing what you want to include in your
final movie. In Final Cut Pro, you indicate what clips or portions of clips you want to act
on by making a selection. Final Cut Pro provides a variety of powerful tools for making
selections with both speed and precision, including filmstrips, which are a connected
series of thumbnail images. Your video clips appear as filmstrips in the timeline (where you
build projects) and in the browser (where your source media is displayed). A single video
filmstrip might represent several seconds of video encompassing hundreds of video frames
(individual images). Audio-only clips appear as audio waveforms, showing the change in
the audio volume over time.
When you add clips from the browser to a project in the timeline, you can add one or
more whole clips, or you can add a range within a clip. Then you can fine-tune the
clips individually in the timeline, adding video effects to them, for example, or inserting
transitions between them.
You can adjust the appearance of filmstrips in the browser and the timeline so that it’s
easier to make selections. For example, expanding the width of a filmstrip (by showing
shorter durations per thumbnail) helps you make more precise selections. See Customize
filmstrip view.
You can also adjust the filmstrip appearance in the timeline to make it easier to view and
select audio waveforms.