Final Cut Pro HD | H•O•T Hands-On Training [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

MOVIE | Motion.mov

For tutorials illustrating this chapter, check out Motion.mov, located in the movies folder on the FCP HD HOT DVD. These tutorials show you how to create picture-in-picture effects, move images along a motion path, and create curved motion paths.

1.

If Final Cut is not running, start it and open Chapter 10Lesson. It's in the FCP Projects/FCP HOT files folder you created at the beginning of this book. Double-click Seq - Pix in Pix to open it. Don't panic, this sequence is supposed to be empty. You'll soon add the content yourself.

2.

Twirl down the Clips bin for Exercise 1 and double-click White coat jump WS to load it into the Viewer. (To save typing, I'll call this the WS clip.) Notice that I've added a marker, labeled Sync point, to the clip. Edit this clip, in its entirety, to V1 on the Timeline. This shot is the wide shot. (And, just to clarify, when I say, "edit a clip," I mean for you to move a clip from the Viewer to the Timeline. In other words, edit it into its position on the Timeline.)

3.

Before adding the next shot, you need to set another marker. Move the playhead down through the clip and watch for the point where the snowboarder crosses the track of another boarder.

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4.

Be sure the WS clip on V1 is selected and press M to set a clip marker at the playhead. (The timecode of this marker is 01:00:07:02.)

5.

Next, double-click White coat jump MS to load it into the Viewer. Notice that I've added a marker to this clip, as well, labeled Sync point. I'll refer to this shot as MS because it is the medium-wide shot that will be shown inside the wide shot.

6.

Go to the patch panel on the left side of the Timeline and drag the left-hand v1 (the Source) up so it connects to (touches) the right-hand V2 (the Destination). This patches the video from the Viewer (the left v1) to the v2 track of the Timeline.

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7.

Move the playhead to the beginning of the Timeline and edit this clip to the Timeline by clicking the red Overwrite button in the lower-left corner of the Canvas. Notice that the clip markers traveled with each clip.

These two shots are two angles of the same jump; one wide (V1) and the other medium-wide (V2). The point where he lands in each shot is indicated by the marker labeled Sync point. You will make the MS clip on the top track smaller and tucked into a corner of the wide shot so viewers can see both angles at once.

8.

Be sure snapping is turned on (press N) then select the bottom clip and position the playhead exactly on top of the first marker. (A fast way to do this is to press Shift+M, to move right to the next marker or Option+M, to move left to the next marker, depending upon the position of the playhead.)

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9.

Drag the top clip so that its first marker aligns with the playhead and the first marker of the WS clip. (The clip should move 2:04 down the Timeline, according to the tooltip.)

10.

Select the top clip and slide the Timeline playhead down until the boarder crosses the same track you marked in the WS clip. (The timecode of this spot is 01:00:07:17.) Be sure the top clip is selected and set a marker at the playhead.

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Hmm… The two sets of markers don't line up. This is not good. In this case, I happen to know that the folks at Standard Films, who shot this sequence, filmed the top clip in slow motion. So, you need to slow down the bottom clip to match it.

11.

Select the bottom clip (WS). Choose Modify > Speed and set the Speed to 75 percent. This slows down the bottom clip to 75 percent of its normal speed.

(By the way, if you want to reverse a clip, you use this same menu to do so. Simply click the Reverse check box, and your clip plays backwards, from Out to In.)

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Oh, my goodness. Things just got worse! Now the bottom clip is much longer and none of the markers match.

This is normal. When you apply a constant speed change to a clip, it will always change duration based on the speed change. Clips that are slowed down get longer. Clips that are sped up get shorter. As well, the audio changes with the video. Slower video means deeper-pitched audio. Faster video means higher-pitched audio. (As you will see in Exercise 6, these rules are different when you make a variable speed change to a clip.)

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12.

Turn snapping on to help align the clips. Select the bottom clip and press Option+M to move the playhead to the first marker. Next, drag the top clip so the first two markers align, and you will see that the second markers now align as well. (If you are having problems getting your clips to align, double-click Seq Pix in pix (sync) and use it instead.)

You have now matched the speed of both clips and aligned them so they are running in sync; that is, they are both showing the same portion of the jump at the same time. You are ready to create the picture-in-picture effect.

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13.

Double-click the V2 clip to load it into the Viewer. Click the Motion tab to display the Motion menu. You'll be working a lot with this menu during this chapter, but for now, concentrate on the top portion, labeled Basic Motion.

There are four Basic Motions:

Scale, which controls the size of the image

Rotation, which controls the rotation of the image

Center, which controls the position of the image

Anchor Point, which controls the point around which the image rotates

Chapter 9, "Text, Titles, and Graphics.")

15.

Go back to the same menu, and choose Image+Wireframe.

16.

Click the Motion tab and change the size by typing 40 into the Scale text box, then pressing Return.

The size of the MS clip is immediately reduced in size and centered in the screen.

17.

Using the Arrow tool, grab near, but not at, the center of the smaller image and drag it up and to the right until the edges of the image align with the top-right Action Safe corner.

18.

Deselect all clips on the Timeline and play the sequence. Most motion effects are real time, so you shouldn't need to render this effect to see it.

Congratulations! Your very first motion effect.

19.

Except… those black borders on the side of the small image are driving me nuts. So, double-click the top clip to load it into the Viewer and twirl down Crop.

Crop allows you to trim your image from the top, bottom, left, and right edges so that you can hide elements of your image. In this case, you want to eliminate the black borders.

20.

In the Crop menu, drag the Left slider in a little until the left black border disappears. (A value of 3 should do it.) Then, drag the Right slider until the right black border disappears. (Again, a value of 3 should be fine, as well.)

Much better…

Except, well, now without that black border, the two images seem to blend into each other too much. You need to separate them.

21.

Look further down in the Motion menu and choose Drop Shadow.

22.

Ta-DA! Much better. Drop shadows always require rendering, so either render the sequence, or use my favorite keyboard shortcutOption+Pto play the sequence without rendering.

Option+P plays an unrendered effect slightly slower than real time, but, then, you didn't need to wait for it to render either. I use Option+P constantly when I am building effects.

23.

That's it for this exercise. Watch your sequence a couple more times to admire your handiwork, then save your project (Cmd+S). Quit Final Cut if you wish, but in the next exercise, you'll be using this project again.