When you first begin editing your project you will most likely have large block clips that you will be cutting up. This happens most with documentary footage where you will record large segments of real-life events, but it tends to happen when you have several takes or clips that are captured into the program at once. These large clips, before they are cut up, are called the Master Clip, and it is always the first appearance of a specific piece of media in a project.
A Master Clip has all the information from a location or angle, from which you are only going to take a small portion. This portion tends to be called a Sub Clip. There is no specified length for a Sub Clip, but they are designed to be only a few seconds long. The idea with this Master Clip and Sub Clip dynamic is that when you are recording, you are supposed to get as much footage from a particular position with the knowledge that you will only use a small portion of it. From here you are supposed to get a number of master clips, each from different angles. When editing you take these Master Clips and cut them up entirely into Sub Clips that are then labeled and categorized. From here you construct a sequence from the Sub Clips that maintains either the story you scripted or the real-life events that you are documenting.
The reason for recording in Master Clips instead of getting a series of small clips is that you then have the freedom to use as much from each angle as you would like in the final project. It also helps maintain visual continuity between shots at different visual perspectives. If you shot each small clip individually every clip would be at a slightly different angle.
Make sure to always properly label and sort all clips, and give the Master Clips their own location for later reference. Keep in mind that the best thing you can do with a Master Clip is use it as a roadmap for deciding the best shots and exactly how long they should be. It is hard to get any series of different clips with their own visuals and audio to match up, so it is important to look back on your Master Clips to keep a pattern together.
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