Cutting clips
Premation’s timeline is a compositor’s timeline: every clip is a layer with its own row, and layers overlapping in time is the normal case. On top of that it carries the edits a video editor has, so a rough cut does not need a second application.
Timeline tools
A row of tools in the timeline header decides what a plain drag on a clip does. They are also under View ▸ Timeline Tools and in the command palette.
| Tool | Key | What a drag does |
|---|---|---|
| Selection | Shift + S | Move a clip bar; drag an edge to trim |
| Razor | Shift + C | Click a clip to split it at the pointer. Shift-click splits every clip on every row at that frame |
| Slip | Shift + Y | Move the source under a fixed bar — position and length do not change |
| Slide | Shift + U | Move the bar between its neighbours, trimming them so no gap opens |
| Roll | Shift + R | Drag a cut between two adjacent clips — the out-point and the in-point travel together |
Esc returns to Selection. In the Selection tool, Alt-drag still slips and Alt + Shift-drag still slides.
These are a separate set from the canvas tools on the toolbar, on purpose. You can hold the Pen on the canvas and the Razor in the timeline at once; picking one does not cancel the other.
Trims and range edits
On a clip’s right-click menu:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Trim In / Out to Playhead | Alt + [ / Alt + ] |
| Ripple Trim In / Out to Playhead | The same trim, and what follows closes up |
| Ripple Insert 1s Gap at Playhead | Opens a gap and pushes later clips along |
| Ripple Delete Layer | Shift + Delete in the timeline. Removes the layer and closes the gap it leaves |
| Lift Work Area · Extract Work Area | Remove the work-area range from the composition |
Lift and Extract act on the work area, and only when one is set. There is no silent fallback to “from the playhead to the end”.
Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + D splits the selected clips at the playhead.
The source monitor
The Source panel shows one clip before it is in the edit. Open it from Window ▸ Panels ▸ Source Monitor, or right-click a video or audio file in the Assets panel and choose Open in Source Monitor.
- Mark In (I) and Mark Out (O).
- Shuttle with J / K / L — press J or L again for 2× and 4×. Arrow keys step a frame.
Four buttons put the marked range into a composition, each as one undo step:
| Button | Result |
|---|---|
| Insert at playhead | The range becomes a clip starting at the composition’s playhead |
| Overwrite at playhead | The same, and the clips it lands on are trimmed. A clip spanning the whole range is split |
| Add to comp end | The range is appended after everything already in the composition |
| New comp from range | A new composition sized and paced to the clip, as long as the range. Not offered for audio |
Overwrite does not delete layers. A clip that sits entirely inside the range is left alone and reported, because the only way to overwrite it would be to remove your layer.
Transitions on a cut
Four transitions sit in a palette in the timeline: Cross Dissolve, Dip to Black, Dip to White and Wipe. Drag one onto a cut, double-click a cut, or use the clip menu.
A transition is kept as one thing — which cut, which kind, how long — so removing or changing it restores exactly what was there before, rather than leaving stray opacity keyframes behind.
The Library’s Transitions section is a different, larger set: animated in / out / cross moves you drop onto a layer.
Building a cut from footage
| Command | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Scene Edit Detection ▸ Markers / Split Clips | Layer menu | Finds the cuts in a clip, and marks them or splits there |
| Assemble from Footage… | Composition ▸ New From Footage, or a video’s menu in Assets | Detects the cuts, splits, drops the shortest shots and sequences the rest with dissolves — one undo step |
| New Composition from Selected Clips… | Composition ▸ New From Footage | Lifts the selected clips into their own composition |
| Remove Silence… | Animation ▸ Audio | Cuts picture and sound at the same boundaries and closes the gaps. The dialog says how many gaps and how much time before you commit |
Multicam
Composition ▸ New From Footage ▸ New Multicam from Selected Assets… builds a composition with one angle per selected file.
- Sync Multicam by Audio lines the angles up from their sound.
- Alt + 1…9 cuts to that angle at the playhead.
- Multicam Viewer… (command palette) shows every angle at once; click one to cut to it.
The viewer follows the playhead while you scrub. It does not play all angles back together in real time.
Editing from the transcript
Composition ▸ Transcript ▸ Transcribe Composition fills the Transcript panel with the composition’s spoken words.
- Click a word to seek to it.
- Select a run of words and press Delete: that time is removed from every layer at once and the gap closes.
- Select Filler Words selects every filler word, ready to delete. The list of fillers is editable.
- Convert to Captions, and export as
.srtor.vtt.
Transcription has the same requirement as generating captions: it runs on your own OpenAI key, and the published installers have no hosted transcription route yet.
Scopes
Window ▸ Panels ▸ Scopes — waveform, RGB parade, vectorscope and histogram of the frame in the viewport.