Editing - Trimming of Clips

This year, we have had to improve our editing skills in Final Cut Express and the quality of work needs to be higher than at AS Level. Therefore, we have looked at some of the problems we encountered last year, and aim to rectify them for this project.
One problem was our clips. In Final Cut Express, when you upload your footage, a clip is created. Last year, we uploaded each take separately, cutting off parts of the footage that we deemed surplus to requirements. As a consequence, if we needed the clip to be four seconds in length, yet only had three seconds, we couldn't extend the clip.
This year, we have decided to upload all our footage from the same filming session as one long clip, and then cut them into smaller clips, which we will then drag into the clips folder. Below is an image showing numerous clips we have created from one large one.

Advantages of Using This Method

• We are able to extend the clip to the length of the entire piece of footage we captured.
• We become familiar with our clips when cutting the long clip, making it easier to select which clips to use.
• The strongest pieces of footage were selected, with weak shots not included in our clips folder. They are not lost, however, as we can just extend the shortened clip.
• We can see whether the footage translates well on screen, and whether we will have to re-shoot parts/whether we have enough footage.

Disadvantages of Using This Method

• It is time consuming, although this isn't necessarily a problem for our group as we are on schedule to finish in time for our deadline.
• We cannot name each clip like we did in the previous year, although we are more familiar with the clips as we have to cut them.