What selects are in video editing, and how Hailo pulls yours
What are selects in video editing? They are the best pieces of your footage, pulled out of everything you shot and gathered in one place, so the edit starts from the good takes instead of the whole card. On a wedding, that means hours of clips narrowed to the moments worth cutting. Hailo pulls a first set for you and plays it back as one timeline.
What you get
Long takes named from their frames
Turn it on and Hailo looks at every long take.
A best-moment marker
On sorted clips, at the steadiest stretch of the action.
Preview your selects
Play them as one timeline inside Hailo, with hotkeys.
Right-click any clip
Reveal it in Finder, open it, relabel it, inspect it.
Your ceremony style
Pick a preset, or teach it from a ceremony film you already cut.
What are selects in video editing, exactly
Selects are the shots an editor has marked as usable or best: the clean take of the kiss, the steady pass of the venue, the laugh in the middle of a toast. Pulling selects is the act of going through the footage and marking those pieces, usually with in and out points, then gathering them in a bin or a selects timeline. Everything after that, from the rough cut to the finished film, is built from them.
A stringout comes first. It is every clip of a scene or a day laid end to end in one sequence, so you can watch it all in order before choosing. Selects are what is left after that watch. A stringout of a whole wedding day can run for hours, which is why pulling selects is often the longest stretch of the edit.
Making a selects timeline by hand, and what Hailo skips
The manual way in Premiere Pro: drop the day's clips into a sequence (your Premiere Pro stringout), play through it, mark the good moments, and lift them to a second sequence named Selects. It works, and it means watching everything once just to learn what you have.
Hailo hands Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve a timeline that is already narrowed: every main camera clip labeled by moment, Hailo's own pick selected, and with trimming on, only the steady stretches of each clip. You start from a first draft of your selects, not from zero.
Preview your selects inside Hailo
Click Selects on the results toolbar and the Selects Preview plays your selected clips back to back, trimmed the way the timeline will be, under a chapter bar colored by moment. Use it to check the cut, catch a bad label or see how the trimming landed, before your editor is even open. Click any card in the grid to drop it from the selects or add it back, or click Smart to return to Hailo's pick.
- Space or K: play and pause.
- J and L: previous and next clip.
- Left and Right arrow: nudge two seconds, stopping at the clip's in or out point.
- M: mute. = and - zoom the timeline, 0 fits it all.
A best-moment marker on sorted clips, and a right-click on every clip
Sorted clips carry a best-moment marker at the steadiest stretch of the action (a clip with no steady stretch gets none), so in a long clip you know where to look first. Right-click any card to Reveal in Finder, copy its path, Open in QuickTime at full quality, change its moment, read Why Hailo labeled this, or show the takes shot around the same time so you can compare them.
Long takes can join in too. Switch on long-take naming and each long take gets its moment named as well, with the token cost in the quote before you start.
Where your style comes in
The selects pick is Hailo's own, and you adjust it by hand. Your style comes in on the ceremony film: pick a ceremony style preset, change any of its settings, or teach Hailo your style from a ceremony film you already cut, and the ceremony builds after that follow it. The ceremony page covers those settings.
Pair your selects with shake trimming and the ones you preview are the steady ones.
How you use it in Hailo
- After a run, click Selects on the results toolbar, or Preview timeline on the done panel.
- Press Space to play. J and L jump between clips, and the arrow keys nudge two seconds.
- Click a card to drop it from the selects or add it back. Smart restores Hailo's pick.
- Right-click a clip to reveal it in Finder, open it in QuickTime or change its moment.
- Click Export and open the timeline in your editor.
Questions filmmakers ask
What are selects in video editing?
Selects are the best takes and moments an editor pulls from the raw footage, gathered in a bin or a selects timeline so the cut is built from them instead of from everything. On a wedding that means the clean kiss, the steady venue pass and the laugh in the toast. Hailo pulls a first set for you, and you can change any of it.
What is the difference between a stringout and selects?
A stringout is everything: every clip of a scene or a day laid end to end in one sequence and watched in order. Selects are what survives that watch, the pieces worth cutting with. On a wedding, Hailo replaces most of the stringout stage by sorting every main camera clip by moment and making its own pick, which you play back and adjust.
What does pulling selects mean?
Pulling selects means going through your footage and marking the usable or best moments, usually with in and out points, then gathering them into a bin or a sequence. It is the first real decision in an edit. In Hailo the first pass is done for you when the run finishes, and you refine it in Selects Preview.
How do you make a selects sequence in Premiere Pro?
By hand: put the day's clips in a sequence, play through it, mark in and out on each good moment, and lift those pieces into a new sequence called Selects. With Hailo, the timeline you open in Premiere Pro is already sorted by moment and narrowed to Hailo's pick, and trimmed to the steady stretches if you asked for trimming.
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See it on your own wedding.
One app, from the first inquiry to the delivered film.