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Cinelerra Tutorial - Editing Video

Crashing and Backups

Cinelerra is not perfect. Before long you will be familiar with the tendency it has to crash. This usually takes the form of all the windows suddenly disappearing. Thankfully this is not often a big problem because Cinelerra can recover from a crash very well. Simply restart it and select Load Backup from the File menu. Make sure that this is the first thing you do after restarting Cinelerra. Cinelerra writes the backup file every time you do something. If you do something else before using Load Backup the backup that was written before the crash will be lost.

Also, don't forget to save your project often using Save from the File menu. Cinelerra saves only the information about how the various source audio and video files are used in the project. You'll have to leave the original files on your hard disk and not move them for the lifetime of the project.

Two Screen Editing

The fastest way to compose a rough cut of your masterpeice is to use two screen editing.

Position the insertion point at the end of the current video. Do this by clicking the Jump to end icon.
Drag the source clip from the Resource window into the Viewer.
Position the viewer where you want the next shot to start.
Click the In point icon, or press the '[' key.
Position the viewer at where you want the next shot to end.
Click the Out point icon, or press the ']' key.
Click the Splice icon, or press the 'v' key.

Repeat this process to build up your video. You can view the result at any point in the Compositor window.

Drag and Drop and Cut and Paste Editing

Once you have the shots selected and lined up, you'll want to tweak the edits. You can switch between the two modes by selecting the Drag and Drop and Cut and Paste icons in the Program window:

In Drag and Drop mode, you can re-arrange the shots. In cut and paste mode, you can select sections and perform the usual cut, copy and paste operations. In both modes you can select which tracks are affected by your editing using the Arm Track Arm track
button buttons. You can not make any changes at all to a track that is not armed.

Tweaking Edit Points

You can tweak the exact length of a particular shot by dragging the handles between the edits. The exact result depends on what mouse button you hold down while dragging. Most usefully, dragging with the middle button adjusts the edit you are dragging and the one adjacent to it, so that the overall length remains the same. Alternatively, dragging with the left button simply adjusts the length of the edit you are dragging - adjacent edits will move accordingly. The best way to learn how this works is to experiment. You will find that you must adjust the audio tracks seperately from the video. This is useful if you want to cut the audio just before the video, for example.

When fine tuning your edits, the zoom control will come in very handy. This is located at the bottom left of the Program window.

Transitions

So far the video and audio is just joined together. You can also create fancy transitions very easily. To do this, select either Audio Transitions or Video Transitions in the Resources window, and drag your chosen transition to a join between edits on the appropriate track. The transition is shown on the timeline as an icon. Right clicking this icon and selecting Length will enable you to adjust how long the transition takes. Selecting Detach removes the transition. Some transitions, such as Bandwipe have extra parameters that can be adjusted by right clicking them and selecting Show.

For transitions to work properly, there must be enough extra material in the source clip after the edit point, so if you plan on using transitions be sure to allow for them when you originally record the material and when you capture it onto your hard disk.

Finally, when you watch the result in the Compositor window, you will see Cinelerra drop frames as it can't do the effect at full speed in real-time. Don't worry, the final rendered video will not have dropped frames.

Effects

You can add effects such as titles to your masterpeice by selecting either Audio Effects or Video Effects from the Resources window and dragging the desired effect onto the appropriate track. Effects show up as extra red bars beneath the track, when the arrow has been clicked. You can adjust the time when the effect is on by dragging the ends of the red bar with the middle mouse button. You can adjust the effect's parameters by right clicking it and selecting Show. Remove an effect by right clicking it and selecting Detach. Probably the most useful effect is Title, which allows you to add titles easily.

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