Hi
Obviously the full length of the clip you have inserted is the maximum length of film you have to juggle with. However you can make it play for longer by simply altering (reducing) the speed it plays. This, of course would make it play in slow motion. A small reduction in speed however, may go unnoticed and give you enough extra time in the sequence for your purpose, particularly with a longer clip in which a small reduction in speed would give a proportionaly larger increase in playing time.
Another way to lengthen a clip is if there is a section or sections that are stationary.
By stationary I mean a section with virtually no movement but not a still image. (But see below.)
You could split these off, duplicate them and then reinsert them so doubling the length of those sections, a very short crossfade would serve to disguise the joins.
In a similar way to that outlined in method 1, you could split off the stationary bits of and then alter their speed after reinserting them. This will add length to the section with a minimal effect. With a stationary section you can reduce the speed quite a lot without much being noticed. (50% reductions will double the playing time for the clip concerned)
Alternatively you could set the red cursor line to a suitable frame in the stationary section and then click the camera icon to take a still photo and then insert this into the sequence. This could then be lengthened to play for as long as required. Being a still image, of course it would be more noticable in the general movie.
If you have edited the clip using the IN/OUT markers then you could re-establish the full length of the clip by altering the markers, or pulling out the ends of the clip in the sequence line but this may result in you adding back an unwanted section you previously eliminated (the reason why you trimmed the clip in the first place.)
A final resort would be to simply insert another unrelated clip.
These are basically the only options you have.
Note that in v2.41 it is quite easy to split and insert clips.
In v3.0x you can add any inserts to the higher video tracks (overlays) and adjust their positions and starting/ending opacity levels and durations for any crossfades deemed necessary. These overlays will overwrite the main track so you can see how they join in. The main sequence length however, will not have changed so you will need to use the scissors icon to cut the main sequence and then pull the right hand section along to a point just before your insert finishes.Now the whole sequence will have been lengthened by the length of your inserted clip.
Nat