Changing clip size and adding rotation: Lesson 10-2
Simply sliding a clip around only begins to exploit the Motion effect possibilities. What makes the Motion effect so useful is the capability to shrink or expand the clip and to spin it.For example, you can start a clip full-screen (or zoom in even farther) and then shrink it to reveal another clip. You can spin a clip onto the screen by having it start as a small dot and then spinning it off the screen, having it grow as it moves away. And you can layer multiple clips, creating several pictures-in-a-picture.Before you dive into this mini-lesson, look at Motion's six keyframeable options:
- Position The screen location of the clip's anchor point (its center unless you change the anchor point).
- Scale (Scale Height with Uniform Scale unchecked)The relative size of the clip. The slider has a range from 0% to 100%, but you can use the numerical representation to increase the clip size to 600% of its original size.
Lesson 9-3. You can input degrees or number of rotations. For example 450° or 1x90. A positive number is clockwise and a negative number is counterclockwise. The maximum number of rotations allowed in either direction is 90, meaning that you can apply up to 180(!) full rotations to a clip.

1. | Drag the Lesson 10-2 preset (Effects > Presets) to the Effect Controls panel. That replaces the previous Motion settings. |
2. | Play this animation.This is how the Motion effect will look by the end of this mini-lesson. |
3. | Click the Position and Scale Toggle Animation stopwatches to remove their keyframes and click the Reset button to return Motion to its default setting. |
4. | Place the CTI at the beginning of the clip, click the Position Toggle Animation stopwatch to switch on keyframes, and move the center of the clip to the upper-left corner (position 0,0). |
5. | Click the Scale Toggle Animation stopwatch and drag the slider to zero.That sets the size to zero for the beginning of the clip. |
6. | Drag the CTI about a third of the way into the clip and press Reset. That creates two keyframes using Motion's default settings: the clip at full size and centered in the screen. |
7. | Drag the CTI about two-thirds of the way into the clip and click the Add/Remove Keyframes button for both Position and Scale.Doing that causes the clip to remain centered and at full screen for the time between the two keyframes (you could also have clicked Reset again to use those default parameters). |
8. | Move the CTI to the end of the clip (Page Down, then left arrow) and change the Position parameters to 720, 480 (lower-right corner). |
9. | Drag a bounding box corner handle (in the Program Monitor) to shrink the clip all the way down to the center crosshairs. That sets Scale back to zero.![]() |
Changing clip sizelike working with text
![]() | As you did in the Titler, you can change clip size using the bounding box. Uncheck Uniform Scale, then to scale freely, drag a corner handle; to scale one dimension only, drag a side (not a corner) handle; and to scale proportionally, Shift+drag any handle. |
10. | Take a look at your Effect Controls timeline. It should look like the next figure.![]() |
11. | Play this clip.The clip should grow from a tiny dot in the upper left, move to full-screen in the center, hold there for a while, and then shrink to a dot while moving to the lower-right corner. |
Adding rotation and changing the anchor point
NoteYou can fine-tune this move in the Effect Controls panel by setting Rotation to 2x0.0°.

NoteThis will make the clip spin around its upper-left vertex. The anchor point location uses the same coordinates used for Motion's Position parameter: 0, 0 is the upper left corner of the screen and 720, 480 is the lower right. These anchor point coordinates are independent of the clip Scale. You can set anchor points outside the clip to have the clip rotate around a point. Try 360 and 240 for example.
9. | Move to the second keyframe and change the Anchor Point's values to 360, 240 (putting clip's rotation vertex in the center of the clipits default location). |
NoteYou can adjust the Anchor Point parameters only in the Effect Controls panel. There is no crosshair target for the Anchor Point in the Program Monitor. Transform, the clip-based effect upon which Motion is based, displays crosshair targets for both the clip center and the anchor point in the Program Monitor.
10. | Go to the third keyframe and click the Anchor Point Add/Remove Keyframe button to add a keyframe there using the previous keyframe's values. |
11. | Move to the fourth keyframe and change the Anchor Point to 720, 480 (setting the clip's rotation vertex to its lower-right corner of the screen). Your Anchor Point Velocity Graph should look like the next figure.![]() |
12. | Play this effect. It should look like the Lesson 10-2 preset. |