Top and tail editing

In Post Production tutorial we recently learnt a new technique for editing in Avid called Top and Tail editing, this technique can be used to cut down footage on the timeline and it is a quicker method of editing. Instead of using I and O for in and out points, you can assign Top and Tail to the buttons E and R to make the editing process more quick and efficient. This is useful for when you are working against the clock.

When you first load Avid, the keyboard will be set to have in and out points on the buttons to E,R and I and O. I and O are the most useful for in and out points. The keyboard can be mapped to any setting by using the Command Palette.

Above is an image of the Command Palette with the keyboard. As we can see in the command palette there is lots of options for different settings in Avid, and each can be dragged and dropped to a button on your keyboard.

 

With E and R set to top and tail, you can cut clips in the timeline just like when you cut the in and out points. The only difference is that your edit goes straight into the timeline so you need to be careful of what you change as it is easy to make a mistake and change clips in the timeline.

 

One problem I found with Avid was that it's not so simple to move footage in the timeline, in Adobe Premier you can easily move footage with no trouble but in Avid it's not so easy. I can understand why Avid has done this, this makes it harder to make any mistakes. Top and tail editing makes it easier to change the timeline instead of going back and changing the in and out points on a clip.