Lift, extract and sync lock in Video by Zaweba
Remove a range from the timeline with lift or extract in Video by Zaweba, and use track targeting and sync lock to keep picture and sound in step.
Cutting a section out of a film sounds simple until there are six tracks of picture, dialogue, music and effects stacked on top of each other. Take out the wrong thing and the sound slips out of step with the picture for the rest of the edit. Video by Zaweba gives you four controls that work together to avoid that: lift, extract, track targeting and sync lock.
Two switches on every track
Every track header carries two small switches. T is for targeted. A targeted track is one the next edit acts on. S is for sync lock. A sync locked track moves along with the edit when time is taken out or added elsewhere, so it stays in step.
These two switches are the key to every range based edit. Think of T as "this edit touches me" and S as "keep me in time with the rest".
Lift and extract
Set an in mark and an out mark on the timeline around the section you want to remove. Then press one of two keys.
Lift, on the semicolon key, removes everything between the marks on the targeted tracks and leaves a gap. Nothing after it moves. Use lift when you want to keep timing exactly as it is, perhaps because the music is cut to picture, and you plan to fill the hole with something else.
Extract, on the apostrophe key, removes the same range and closes the gap, pulling everything after it back. The film gets shorter by the length of the range. Use extract when you are tightening: cutting an umm, a false start or a dull stretch.
Why sync lock matters
When you extract on some tracks but not others, the tracks you left alone would normally stay where they were while the targeted tracks move back. That is how sound drifts out of step with picture.
With sync lock on, a track that has nothing of its own in the range moves along with the extract. Say you target only the interview picture and sound tracks and extract ten seconds. A sync locked graphics track with nothing in those ten seconds shifts back ten seconds too, so the lower third still appears over the right person.
If a sync locked track does have something in the range, it does not move, because moving it would cut through that clip. That is the moment to decide whether to target that track as well.
Routing sources to tracks
A track's right click menu chooses where source pictures and sound go when you insert or overwrite from the source monitor. Set it up so interviews land on the dialogue track and cutaways on an upper picture track, and three-point edits drop into the right place without dragging. The same menu renames a track or deletes it.
Naming tracks pays off on a busy edit. "Dialogue", "Music" and "Effects" are quicker to read than numbers when you are deciding which ones to target.
A typical tightening pass
Play through the edit. When you hear a section to remove, set in and out around it. Check the targeted tracks: usually the picture and dialogue. Leave music untargeted if it should carry on underneath, but make sure its sync lock suits what you want. Press the apostrophe to extract. Play across the new cut to hear how it sounds.
If the result is wrong, undo. Each lift or extract is one step in History, so you can go back and try a slightly different range without fuss.
Where extracts go wrong
Leaving a track targeted from an earlier edit is the common one. A music track that is targeted will have its range removed too, leaving a jump in the score. Check the T switches before every extract until it becomes a habit.
The other is turning sync lock off to get a track out of the way and forgetting to turn it back on. Later extracts then leave that track behind. In Video by Zaweba it is worth leaving sync lock on as the normal state and switching it off only for a specific reason.
