Montage templates are located under Themes in the Montages and Templates category of the Library panel. The templates are pre-defined (limited editing) designed to enhance your movies with off-the-shelf slideshow, animation and multitrack editing effects. Montage templates have slots that can contain several types of custom data, including video, text captions, photos and more. You can fill in a slot just by dragging a suitable asset to the corresponding displayed drop zone.

Within each theme, the available templates are designed to complement one another when used in the same project.

For instance, most themes provide an Opening template and a matching Ending template. Many themes also provide one or more Segue templates you can use when transitioning from one video or image clip to another.

The first step in using a chosen template is to drop it onto your project’s timeline. Once there, the Montage template is treated as an ordinary, self-contained video clip. To customize the clip by filling in the template’s blanks, you will double-click the Montage clip to open the Montage Editor. For more information, see “Using the Montage Editor” on page 151.

Each template defines a video or graphic sequence with blanks to be filled in by you. The available customizations can take several forms. For instance, most templates provide one or more slots, or ‘drop zones’, for video or image clips. Many let you supply text captions for titles, and some have additional parameters for other special properties.

Some templates have built-in graphical backgrounds, a selectable background color, or both. Many of these also provide a Background check box in the Montage Editor; leave the box unchecked if you want a transparent background. This allows the Montage to be used on an upper timeline track over a background of the video or photo material on the tracks below.