The roughing under kdenlive

[ Object , the principle , the generic, arranging clips on the timeline , guides and markers , adding a soundtrack , recording a soundtrack , the audio mixer ]

The roughing under Kdenlive

Last modified August 2, 2024

This site has been automatically translated with Google Translate from this original page written in french, there may be some translation errors

Object

This page is part of a tutorial to explain video editing with kdenlive and which includes the following topics:

Introduction

Presentation and configuration

Project preparation

Fix performance issues

The rough cut (this page)

Apply effects

Add transitions

Title and subtitle management

Keyframe Management

Video Calibration

Export your video

The principle of assembly

Please refer to this page to learn the main principles of assembly.

The generic

At the very beginning of the final video, we will place a synfig animation ( Slideshow Clip ) with a jingle as we can see later in the page on title management , then the rest of the video will be sized by a soundtrack. So we start by placing the opening animation with its jingle on the timeline.

In Project Sources we select the sequence of images and by drag and drop we slide it onto the first video track of the timeline (the one marked V2 ), we then slide the white color clip onto the second track (the one marked V1 ), I place the jingle on the first audio track of the timeline (the one marked A1 ). It should give something like this:

The duration of the initial animation is given by the duration of the slideshow clip, so we stretch the color clip, the stretching tool is very intuitive, we place ourselves at the end of the clip, the cursor changes and by holding down the left mouse button we stretch it as we want. We can also play precisely on the duration from the context menu Modify duration

On the other hand, for video or audio clips, you will have to change the speed by slowing it down or speeding it up from the Change speed context menu

I would like to take this opportunity to point out an interesting function: by clicking on the Reverse Clip button , you can have a reverse clip effect to view the clip by going back in time.

To change the speed of a slideshow clip, you will need to adjust the Image Duration parameter in the Clip Properties.

Or add the last image of the series to the next one. In fact, we end up with the slideshow clips extended by an image, the color clip and the audio clip of the same duration which overlap on several different tracks.

Now we will understand the interest of the white background, in fact the images of my animation have a transparent background, the idea is that they merge with the white background of the second track. To do this we click on the Composition and transformation effect which is in the Compositions tab at the top right and we drag it to the bottom right corner of the Slideshow Clip of the timeline. We will see the properties of the transition displayed like this:

If you can't find the Properties tab next to the Clip Properties tab, you'll probably have to force its display from the View->Properties menu. We stretch this transition so that it starts at the beginning of the timeline. If we go to the beginning and start a playback in the Project Monitor, we can see what it looks like. At the Properties level we see the default properties of our transition, there is no reason to touch them.

The preparatory phase is complete, we can begin the actual assembly.

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Arrange clips on the timeline

We now begin the most laborious part of the editing, it consists of selecting from the rushes the video clips that will be the basis of the editing and that will be moved in the timeline to constitute the final video. All the art of editing then lies in placing them between them in the right order, the right rhythm, the right duration, etc. It cannot be improvised and it comes with time, there are quite a few sites on the internet that explain this very well by giving some good advice.

We start by selecting our first clip and viewing it in the clip monitor to locate the part of the clip that interests us.

Once located, we place ourselves roughly at the beginning of the clip (we will then refine it at the timeline level), we click on this button

, we place ourselves at the end of the clip and we click on

. The selected part of the clip now appears in the Clip Monitor in blue:

we click directly on the video of the clip monitor and move it by drag and drop on the first video track of the timeline. To have a complete view of the project we click on the button to the left of the zoom cursor

at the bottom right of the main window. This is what it gives:

Starting from version 21.4, you can zoom in/out directly at the timeline level, by dragging the ends.

Note that the video and audio have been separated and are on two different tracks, so we can make them undergo different effects, also note that when we move the video clip, the audio clip moves in the same way on the timeline and vice versa. We then select the clips that we will drag and drop into the timeline by placing them successively on tracks V2 and V1. This will give a result that will look something like this:

I intentionally zoomed in on the timeline to show it as a whole. Note that you can increase or decrease the size of the tracks by playing with the slider as the image below indicates:

You can see that if clips overlap it is always the clip on the top track that will be seen in the project monitor. For version 20.X, assuming there are multiple clips overlapping on the timeline like this:

At the project monitor level with the context menu you can choose the Multitrack View visualization

And here is the result, the selected track appears highlighted in red

We go back to our business and now click anywhere in the timeline, move the cursor to the beginning and we can view the video in the project monitor.

To rearrange the order of the clips it's quite simple, we click on a clip and drag and drop it where we want on one of the two video tracks, we can use a third video track (to be created as indicated previously ) to temporarily place a clip. Below I have reversed the order of the first clips.

To cut part of a clip in the timeline, simply select the clip, position the cursor at the start of the clip to be cut, do not hesitate to zoom in to cut at the right moment, from the right mouse button click on Cut on the cursor.

We select the piece of clip to delete, then from the context menu Delete

If you cut too much, don't panic! It can be fixed, just extend the clip to the right or left with the mouse, it will be completed from the original rush from which the clip came.

Some other useful tools for logging and generally for editing, if you hold down the SHIFT key you can select several clips at the same time on the timeline, this can be useful for moving them for example. In the same way you can select them by holding down the CTRL key and clicking on the clips one after the other.

Otherwise, when your clip layout is almost finished, you realize that you need to insert a new clip right in the middle, it will not be useful to move everything upstream to make room. To do this, simply select all the tracks (their names turn green), switch to the Timeline Insertion Method (below), and move the cursor to the location where you want to insert your clip

You have selected your clip to insert from the project sources or the clip monitor, now click on the tool

, the clip will be automatically added to the timeline at the level of the V1 track by default at the cursor level and all the clips of all the tracks will be shifted to the right.

Note that if a track is not selected (and therefore with a gray name), the clips will not be shifted, in the case below only track V2 is selected, the inserted clip will therefore be on track V2, the other clips of the other tracks have not been shifted.

Remember to return to normal mode afterwards from the timeline.

Tips:

to go to the end of a clip, you have to place the cursor somewhere at the clip level then click on the End key (on my keyboard it's the Fn key + arrow >), and to go to the beginning you will do the same with the Home key (on my keyboard Fn key + arrow <).
you also have a function to remove all unnecessary spaces from the timeline between clips, it is accessible from the timeline context menu

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Guides and markers

You can use markers (guides) to position a mark in the timeline, this can be useful to be able to quickly position yourself from one mark to another in the timeline.

You can rename them and categorize them with a particular color

To position yourself at a marker, with the context menu, you can choose Go to guide... and select the correct marker.

If we uncheck Locked Guides and click on the move icon

we can move the entire project in the timeline, including the guides.

You have access from the View menu to a dock on the guides that can be seen below at the top right, the guides can be sorted by category, by clicking on a guide the cursor is automatically placed on it in the timeline.

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Add a soundtrack

Now we will add a soundtrack that will frame the final video as a whole, it is a classic audio file (mp3, wav, flac format, ...) we incorporate it by importing an audio file Project->Add a video or a folder. In the properties of the clip you will have to click on the video stream to deactivate it

thenwe create an additional audio track Editing->Tracks->Insert Track we create it under track A2

Now by drag and drop we slide the audio clip onto the audio track A3 that we have just created

We can see that my videos exceed the duration of the soundtrack, so we will have to cut part of them, we will see that later.

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Record a soundtrack

From the context menu by clicking on an audio track you can activate recording functions, this is particularly useful for those who make tutorials, you must check the box Show recording controls

While recording it gives this

and it creates a new audio clip (saved by default in FLAC format ). Audio recording configuration is done in the kdenlive settings at the Acquisition level

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The audio mixer

By clicking on the Sound Mix button in the timeline (highlighted button in the image below) you access an audio mixer in which you have access to functions for recording and balancing audio tracks, in order to increase or decrease the volume, track by track.