Movies within movies (nested projects)
All the movie projects that you create in Pinnacle Studio appear as assets in the Projects category of the Library panel. But the purpose of Library assets is to serve as the ingredients of movies. What will happen if you try to drag Movie Project A onto the timeline of Movie Project B?
The answer is simple enough: As with most types of assets, Project A becomes a single clip on Project B’s timeline. From the standpoint of timeline editing, it behaves just like any of your other video assets. You can trim it, move it around, apply effects and transitions, and so on. (The same is not true of disc projects. These cannot be used as clips in another project.)
The nested project remains intact inside this container clip, along with all of the project’s clips, effects, titles and other components. Double-clicking the clip in the timeline opens the project in a new timeline tab. Any modifications you make affect only the copy of the project inside the container clip, not the original.
The length of the container clip on the timeline of the main project is not tied to the length of the nested clip on its own timeline. You need to manually trim the container clip if you want it to match the duration of the nested project.
To create a nested project from clips in the Timeline
1 Hold down Ctrl, and in the Timeline, select the clips that you want to save as a nested project.
2 Right-click a selected clip and choose Group > Save Group as Project.
3 Type a name for the project.
The group is saved as a project in the Library and now appears in the Timeline as a single container clip (gray color).
To edit a nested project in the Timeline
1 In the Timeline, double-click a nested project (gray color indicates a nested project).
2 A new tabbed page opens on the Timeline (the name of the nested project appears on the tab).
3 Make the edits you want to the nested project.
4 To return to the main project, click the corresponding Timeline tab (name of main project appears on tab).
To add a project from the Library to the current project
1 With the main project open in the Timeline, drag a project file from the Library to the Timeline.
The project is automatically added to the Timeline as a nested project (gray color indicates a nested project).
Tip: If at any time you want to move elements between a nested project and the main project, you can use the context menu to copy and paste the elements you want to move.