Video Core is Accord Suite's editing page — "project, monitors, timeline and effects, for cutting film." It is laid out the way editors expect: a Project panel of clips, a Source monitor for looking at footage, a Program monitor showing the cut, and a timeline of picture and sound tracks beneath.

Video Core in sixteen seconds.

This guide covers the craft of a cut — getting shots in, shaping them, timing them, finishing them — and the vocabulary that comes with it. Every command is the app's own.

Getting shots onto the timeline

Three-point editing. The classic method: open a clip in the Source panel and mark the stretch you want with In and Out; put the timeline's playhead where it should go; then click Insert (,) to put it in and push the rest of the film later, or Overwrite (.) to lay it over what is already there. Insert lengthens the film; overwrite keeps its length.

The whole clip. Right-click a film in the Project panel and choose Put the Whole Clip on the Timeline — no marks needed — or simply drag the file onto the window from Finder. More on bringing footage in, judging takes and keywords in importing media.

Look without losing your place. View ▸ Skimming: move the pointer along the timeline and the picture shows the frame under it; move off and you are back at the playhead, which never moved. View ▸ Hear Sound While Scrubbing plays a moment of sound with every drag or frame step — the way to find a word or a beat by ear.

Shaping the cut

Split. Put the playhead inside a clip and press ⌘K (or click the scissors): it is cut in two there.

Remove. Clip ▸ Lift (⇧⌫) takes a clip out and leaves its gap; Clip ▸ Extract (⌥⇧⌫) takes it out and closes the gap behind it.

The four trims. Each one answers a different question about what happens to the clips around the edit:

Trim — Select tool (V). Drag a clip's end: it gets shorter or longer, and everything else stays where it is (a gap opens, or the clip covers what follows).
Ripple — Ripple tool (B). Drag an end: the clips after it slide to close up or make room, so nothing is left with a gap.
Roll — Roll tool (N). Drag the cut between two clips: one gets longer as the other gets shorter, and together they keep their length. The edit point moves; the film's length does not.
Slip — Slip tool (Y). Drag the middle of a clip: the footage slides under it and the clip stays put — the same slot, a different moment. Put the Whole Clip Back shows the footage from its beginning again.
Slide — Slide tool (U). Drag a clip: it moves between its neighbours, which grow and shrink to fill the space.

More moves. Clip ▸ Move Clip to Playhead lines a shot up with a beat or marker. Duplicate Clip repeats it straight after itself. Replace Footage… swaps a different take or a new render into a clip without moving it. Link Clips ties a picture and its sound together so moving one moves the other.

Compound clips. Select clips side by side and choose Clip ▸ Make Compound Clip to move, trim and retime them as one. Open Compound Clip edits what is inside, on its own clock; Film above the track names brings you back out; Break Apart restores them.

Cutting to music

Select the music clip and choose Clip ▸ Mark the Beats. A marker appears on every beat, and the status line says roughly how many beats a minute. Drag or trim a clip near a beat marker and it snaps to the beat, as it does to a cut. Clear Beat Markers when you are done.

Cutting between cameras

For an interview or an event filmed on several cameras:

Select one clip from each camera — they may be on different tracks.
Choose Clip ▸ Make Multicam Clip and how to line them up: Synced by Sound, by Timecode, by When They Were Filmed, or As Placed on the Timeline.
Put the playhead where a cut goes and press ⌥2 (or Clip ▸ Cut to Angle ▸ Angle 2). Show Angles shows every camera at once; click the one to cut to.
Cut Picture to Angle or Cut Sound to Angle changes only one — keep the best microphone while the pictures change.
If an angle is out of step, Nudge Angle One Frame Earlier or Later fixes it in every piece.

Cutting by what is said

This is where a transcript changes the job.

Transcribe. In the Captions panel choose the language and click Transcribe. It runs on your Mac.
Cut words out. Click Cut from Film on a caption, click the words to keep so only the ones to cut stay chosen, and cut them: that stretch goes from every track at once.
Remove the ums and uhs. Remove Filler Words cuts every hesitation in the transcript at once, from every track, keeping two frames either side. One undo puts them all back.
Search what was said. Type in Search the transcript; click a caption's time to go there.

Time: speed, slow motion and freeze frames

Simple speed. Right-click a clip ▸ Speed: Half (50%), Normal, Double (200%) or Four times (400%), or Play Backwards.
Speed ramps. Put the playhead where the speed should change and choose Clip ▸ Split Speed Here; then Clip ▸ Speed Parts… and type each part's speed. Smooth the Change ramps from one speed to the other instead of jumping — the effect sports and action edits are made of.
Variable speed. Clip ▸ Variable Speed turns a clip's speed into a curve that can be shaped; Constant Speed puts it back.
Freeze. Clip ▸ Freeze Frame ▸ 1, 2 or 4 seconds.
Smooth slow motion. Slowing footage down either repeats frames (a stutter) or blends them (a double image). Clip ▸ Between Frames ▸ Optical Flow draws each in-between instant by following the motion between the two frames, for slow motion that stays smooth.
Every frame on its own. Clip ▸ Separate into Frames cuts a clip at every frame, to hold, reorder or retime frames one by one.

Repairs

Rolling shutter. Phone and many video cameras read the sensor line by line, so a fast pan leans verticals sideways and makes a shaky shot wobble like jelly. Clip ▸ Repair Rolling Shutter ▸ 50% of a Frame, then play the pan: if verticals still lean the same way choose a larger amount, if they lean the other way a smaller one.

Stabilising and tracking are on Anime Core — see animation.

Transitions, titles and mattes

Transitions. Select the clip that arrives and choose a transition from Clip ▸ Fade In (or Fade Out for the one that leaves), or Control-click the clip. The menu item says how long it lasts — Cross Dissolve · 12 frames — and the timeline draws a wedge on the clip's edge. Remove goes back to a straight cut.

Titles and lower thirds. Open the Titles panel (beside Project, Library and Effects). Under Lower Thirds, click Lower Third: on a film it arrives as a five-second clip at the playhead, on the top track. Select the words and type your own in the Text panel. Titles are placed to suit any shape of frame.

Mattes. Clip ▸ New Matte ▸ Colour or Gradient puts a plain background on the timeline — behind a title, or to dissolve through — with no footage needed.

Effects. Add an effect from the Effects panel (type to search; drag one onto a layer to put it exactly there). Select the clip or layer that has it and its numbers appear in Effect Controls, each with a stopwatch for animating it. An adjustment clip (Clip ▸ Add Adjustment Clip) changes the look of everything beneath a span of the timeline at once — drag its ends to cover the span. The deep colour work happens on Colour Core.

Keeping your place

Markers. Press M (or the bookmark at the top of the timeline). Move Marker to Playhead corrects one placed a few frames out; Rename Marker at Playhead… names it.
Chapters and to-dos. Clip ▸ Marker at Playhead Is ▸ Chapter — export the film and its chapter markers become chapters a player lists. Or mark it To Do and use Clip ▸ Next To Do to visit what is left to fix.
Reading a clip at a glance. Small marks at the top right of a clip say what has been done to it: changed speed, played backwards, blended frames, effects, animation, an offline film. Hover to read each. View ▸ Track Height switches between Compact, Standard and Tall.

Working with other editors

A cut is not trapped in Accord Suite.

In: File ▸ Import Cut (.otio, .fcpxml)… opens an edit saved from another program as OpenTimelineIO or Final Cut Pro XML, as a timeline here. Anything that cannot be carried over is named in a report, not silently dropped.
Out: Export Cut (.fcpxml)… and Export Cut (.otio)… send it the other way.
Roles. Clip ▸ Track Role marks a track as Dialogue, Music or Effects (or Video or Titles for picture), so the program that opens the .fcpxml sorts its clips under those roles.

Finishing: captions and export

Captions. Correct a caption by clicking its text; Translate makes a copy in another language; untick Show to keep a language off the picture; Export… writes a SubRip (.srt) or WebVTT (.vtt) file.
Export the film. File ▸ Export… writes the film. Free, up to 1080p; with Accord Suite Pro at 4K and 8K. File ▸ Add Film to Render Queue and File ▸ Render Queue… line up several films or versions and export them one after another. The details — codecs, sizes, stems and surround — are in every way to export.

Where to go next

Grading in Colour Core · Mixing and dubbing in Audio Core · Importing media · The overview

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Cutting film in Accord Suite's Video Core: the timeline, trims, multicam, captions and speed