ABSTRACT
Film and video are primarily visual media. Oddly enough, though, the moment an edit occurs is often driven as much by the sound as by the picture. This chapter looks at sound editing in Final Cut Express. It discusses first looks at the Trim Edit window, and then shows a few different ways to do Split edits so that the sound and the picture do not cut in at the same point. Screams, gunshots, and doors slamming being exceptions, our aural perception is based on smooth transitions from one to another. Sounds, especially background sounds such as the ambient noise in a room, generally need to overlap to smooth out the jarring abruptness of a hard cut. The chapter also explains details of the timecode display at the top of the Trim Edit Window, the uses of the Linked Selection Button, and the application of the Cross Fade Transition.
