The multi-track timeline

Top to bottom, that is three jobs: watching (the preview), doing (the toolbar), where you do it (the timeline). Every remaining section in this chapter lands on one of these three.

• The video track: one block per clip, end to end, with no gaps between them. Delete a clip and the ones after it close up on their own. Each block carries the clip's name and how long it runs on the track (hh:mm:ss:ff).
• The subtitle track: a track of its own. Moving a subtitle does not move the picture, and the other way round. It stays hidden while there are no subtitles and the subtitle panel is closed.

At the far left of the tracks is a column of two switches, and both only govern what you see and hear right now — neither affects the export: the speaker mutes the preview, the eye stops drawing subtitles in it. To make a clip silent in the finished cut, change that clip's own volume (see 7.3).

The white line is where you are right now. Click the ruler, click empty track, or drag the grip at the top to move it; space plays and pauses.

Remember this one: trimming, splitting and new subtitles all go by the playhead. So each of those is always two steps — put the playhead in the right place, then hit the button.

• Zoom: ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) plus the wheel, or pinch on a trackpad. The moment under the cursor stays put and the timeline grows out to either side of it. The bottom right also has zoom out / slider / zoom in.
• Pan: the wheel, or two fingers on a trackpad; horizontal and vertical both pan sideways.
• Fit to window: squeezes the whole film back into one screen. That is how the bay opens.
• Snapping: with it on, dragging the playhead or the end of a clip sticks to the nearest clip boundary or whole second. Turn it off when you need an exact frame.

Zoomed all the way in, one frame is 60 pixels wide, so you can line things up frame by frame; there is always empty space left to the right of the timeline, so you never run out of room to scroll.