Splitting Clips (The Blade Tool)

The most fundamental action in video editing is cutting a clip. In ORAPHIM, this is performed using the Blade Tool.

Using the Blade Tool

  1. Press B on your keyboard, or click the razor blade icon in the timeline toolbar. Your cursor will turn into a small razor blade.
  2. Hover over any clip on the timeline. A vertical red line will appear indicating exactly where the cut will occur.
  3. Click once.

The clip is now split into two completely independent clips. You can move, delete, or apply different effects to the second half without affecting the first half.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Splitting

Manually clicking the Blade tool is precise, but it can be slow if you have a lot of footage to cut. ORAPHIM offers several shortcuts to dramatically speed up this process:

Split at Playhead

Instead of clicking with the mouse, you can simply press Ctrl + \ (Windows) or Cmd + B (macOS). This will instantly split whatever clip is currently selected exactly where the red playhead is parked. If no clips are selected, it will slice all clips on all unlocked tracks at the playhead position.

Trim Start to Playhead (Top)

If you have a 10-second clip, and the first 3 seconds are just the actor waiting for action, you could use the blade tool to cut at 3 seconds, select the first piece, and hit delete. Or, you can use the Top command to do it instantly:

  1. Park your playhead at the 3-second mark.
  2. Press Shift + [ (Windows/macOS). ORAPHIM will instantly delete everything in the clip before the playhead, and ripple the rest of the timeline backwards to fill the gap.

Trim End to Playhead (Tail)

Conversely, if the director yells "cut" but the camera keeps rolling for 5 seconds, you can instantly chop off the end of the clip:

  1. Park your playhead exactly where the scene ends.
  2. Press Shift + ] (Windows/macOS). ORAPHIM will instantly delete everything in the clip after the playhead.