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

1.

Open Chapter 08 Lesson 1 and double-click Seq Ready to mix to load it into the Timeline. This is the same Hurricane project you were working on in Chapter 7, "AudioThe Secret to a Great Picture," but I removed the keyframes because using keyframes to create transitions is what the first part of this exercise is all about.

2.

There are three ways to create a transition using the mouse, plus several more using keyboard shortcuts. Here's the first, which is a review from Chapter 7. Choose the Zoom tool (press Z) and zoom in on tracks A5 and A6. Then, choose the Pen tool (press P) and set two keyframes at the beginning of the music.

(If you don't see the red "rubber bands," display them by clicking the Clip Overlay button in the lower-left corner of the Timeline. It's the icon that looks like a mountain.)

3.

Then, using the Pen tool, drag the first keyframe down and to the edge of the clip. This brings the volume "rubber band" down so that the audio will fade in starting at the first keyframe and ending the fade at the second keyframe.

Chapter 2: you select something, then you do something to it. That rule still applies, all these chapters later.)

8.

Here's the third way to create a transition. Using the Arrow tool, make sure nothing is selected on the Timeline. Then, go up to the Browser and click the Effects tab. This is a duplicate of all the effects available in the Effects menu, with one new benefit: you don't need to select the edit point before you pick your transition.

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9.

Twirl down the Audio Transitions folder, select Cross Fade (+3 dB) and drag it down on top of the first music edit point.

Poof! The transition is immediately applied to the edit point.

This is the really big benefit to pulling transitions from the Effects tabyou don't need to select the edit point first, you can just drag the transition to any edit point you want.

Which of these three ways of creating a transition is better? That's entirely your opinion. I use all three of these, constantly switching between them depending upon where I am and what I want to do.

One of the cool things about using a transition, as opposed to setting keyframes, is that it is easy to change the duration of the transition.

10.

First, because you need to make a small adjustment, be sure to turn off snapping by clicking the Snapping button in the top-right corner of the Timeline, or pressing N. Using the Arrow tool, grab an edge of the transition and pull it to the right. See how the duration changes?

Drag this out until the new fade in duration is 2:00 (2 seconds).

It is not possible to use keyframes to create a dissolve between two audio clipswell, not with both clips on the same track, that is. But this is not a problem because it is far easier to create dissolves using the Effects menu and the Effects tab, as you are about to learn.

11.

Scroll up until you can see the first edit point between two clips on A1 and A2. Because you are working on only these two tracks, turn on the Solo buttons for these two tracks on the far-left edge of the Timeline. Then, highlight the edit point.

(If the Mute and Solo buttons are not visible, display them by clicking the Audio Controls button in the lower-left corner of the Timeline.)

12.

Choose Effects > Audio Transitions > Cross Fade (+3 dB). It appears on the selected edit point.

13.

Double-click the gray transition icon, and the Duration dialog opens. This is another way to change the duration of a transition. Many times, I've found it very useful to add a very short audio dissolve between two sound bites to smooth out the transition in background noise (called "room tone") between the two cuts.

For this reason, my favorite audio transition is four frames. Enter the number 4 and click OK. See how the edit point got smaller?

(By the way, you can get to the Duration dialog at any time, for both a clip or a transition, by Ctrl+clicking the clip and choosing Duration from the shortcut menu, or by selecting the clip, or transition, and pressing Ctrl+D.

14.

Play the first section of this piece with the first two tracks soloed. Can you hear how the transition makes the cut between the two voices sound less jarring? That's the point behind using this dissolveit makes your audio sound smoother.

15.

That's it for this introduction to transitions. For the rest of this chapter, you'll be working with video. Save your work and close this project.

NOTE | About Handles

Handles are critical to trimming and transitionsbecause if you don't have a little extra footage at the beginning and end of each shot, you can't trim, and you can't add a transition.

Why?

Chapter 7, "AudioThe Secret to a Great Picture," virtually all of the hurricane talking head footage has handles. None of the B-roll footage does. Which video (and audio) can you use for transitions?

Handles are just really, really important.