Depending on your editing style, you may end up with a timeline full of gaps. Clicking and dragging each individual clip to close those gaps is time consuming and potentially messy. Final Cut King has a tutorial on how to find and fix those gaps cleanly.

Watch the video tutorial here.

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, I promise you: it will. You go out and shoot a couple of tapes, and when you digitize it, you find that some of the tapes are anamorphic, and some aren’t. Or maybe you’re using 4:3 stock footage in a 16:9 timeline. CaptMench has some tricks on dealing with this problem and gives you some options on what to do.

Watch the video tutorial here.

Cutting to the beat is important in music-driven edits. CaptMench shares his technique for doing this quickly, using matte colors, a couple shortcuts and replace edit. You’ll definitely speed up with this technique.

Watch the video tutorial here.

When I first read about the match frame, I couldn’t figure out what it was for. Now, I can’t figure out how I would work without it. Match framing is the easiest way to get back to an unadulterated version of the clip you’re working on. This tutorial from The Final Cut Pro.com walks you through the uses and caveats of match framing.

Read the tutorial here.

As an editor, you will do well to learn the trimming tools. GeniusDV has a good overview of each of the tools- roll, ripple, slide, and slip. It also talks about the importance of handles and how to use the Trim Edit window. Seriously- these tools are your friends. Take a moment to learn them, get comfortable using them, and your editing will definitely speed up.

Read the tutorial here.

There are some things in Final Cut that you can live without – until you learn about them. Things like the ripple and roll tools. Alex Gollner has a quick video tutorial that will make using these tools even faster.

Watch the video tutorial here.

You’ve been there- you’ve had a cut ready, and then someone asks you to change something near the beginning. Great, now you have to change all the audio levels you painstakingly keyframed. Alex Gollner shows how to move all your keyframes at once- a real time saver.

Watch the video tutorial here.