Keyboard Shortcut: Transition Tricks

[This article was first published in the November, 2010, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe.]

Richard Day sent this in:

FCP will set your transition to 1 frame if you don’t have handles on both clips. I wanted to start a transition at the very beginning of the second clip, but the Transition Editor would not let me select the left-most alignment button, even though I had enough frames on the first clip.

 

I temporarily set up a dummy edit (to Slug) elsewhere using the left-most transition alignment button, and copied the transition and pasted it at my original edit point — it worked!

Larry replies: Thanks! You can also accomplish this by dragging a transition from the Effects tab in the Browser. Or, by Option+dragging a transition from another edit point, which makes a copy of the transition as you drag.

To change the timing of a transition, select it and type:

• Option+1 to start it at the edit point
• Option+2 to center it at the edit point
• Option+3 to end it at the edit point