Just a quick note in this (thankfully) slow week. Sometimes I need reminded that the world offline has a longer attention span than the world online. Twitter (which, yes, I use and enjoy) is often exactly what my brain doesn’t need: a whirling maelstrom of focus-killing distraction. With any luck, I’ll be able to read a book again soon.
Probably on my iPad, though.
1. Adjustment Layers for video
Open Motion. Create a new Text title. Select, then delete the Text Layer. That layer that’s left behind represents everything underneath the text, and we’ll use it to our advantage. Save. Call the title Adjustment Layer and pop it in a new category called “Experiments” or some other unique name.
In FCP X, add that Title from the category you gave it. Put it above another series of clips — anything at all. Now, apply an effect or a colour correction to that Title, and it will apply to every clip below. You could even apply multiple copies in an Audition and switch between different looks for your whole edit. Fantastic. [Credit: Tapio Haaja on Creative Cow]
2. Audio-only transitions
Open Motion. Create a new Transition. This transition is a straight cut, but the standard audio transition is applied when you use it. Save, into a new “Experiments” category or similar.
In FCP X, just apply it when you want an audio-only transition. Standard controls in the Inspector will let you adjust the audio fade type.
3. Use advanced timeline features
A few related tips for those struggling with the new magnetic timeline. Remember: if you get frustrated with the default ripple-style behaviour of the timeline, just select the Position tool, and it’ll be just like FCP 7.
Connected clips are great, but you can’t apply transitions between two neighbouring connected clips. To make this work, select them both and choose Clip > Create Storyline or press command-G. Now you can transition between neighbouring clips, and there will be only one point of connection for the whole storyline. Leave gaps (shift-delete) to reveal the primary storyline underneath.
Limitations: three-point editing (choosing in and out points on the timeline) and Appending a clip only target the primary storyline. You’ll also have to specifically select the secondary storyline if you want to Insert or Overwrite there. Yes! Overwrite works; there’s no button, but the shortcut is D.
Lastly, you may sometimes wish to send clips up or down in the stacking order. Command-option-up or down will do this nicely, and will create gap clips if needed.
4. Use Ken Burns with Timelapse footage
The workflow here might not be too different, but it’s certainly easier than before. In QuickTime Player 7 (Pro), Open Image Sequence as usual, and choose the preferred frame rate. But rather than just cropping off the top and bottom of the image by exporting to 1920×1080, export a tall 2K QuickTime Movie. For Settings, choose ProRes 422 as the codec. For Size, choose custom, 2048×1556, and tick maintain aspect ratio with Letterbox. This is a 4:3 aspect ratio, a little squarer than a DSLR shoots, so you’ll have mild letterboxing top and bottom that we’ll crop off in FCP X.
Import the movie into FCP X. 2K is a supported resolution, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble with playback. Drop the clip into a timeline, select it, and press the Crop button in the Viewer. Crop will work if you only want to reframe, but Ken Burns should work well to allow a simple pan, tilt or dolly move. Zooming in a little is OK, but too much will cause blurriness, so if you want to blow the video up quite a bit, export from QuickTime Player 7 in 4K: 4096×3112. This will be slower, but you should be able to zoom it to 200% without quality loss.
5. Use hidden color correction keys
In FCP X, choose Final Cut Pro > Commands > Customize. In the search field in the top right corner, type “color”. You might like to add some keys to the top three commands: Apply Color Correction from Previous Clip, from Three Clips back, and from Two Clips back. You might also like to add keys to select the next or previous puck, and to nudge these pucks about.
6. Use Disk Images for extra media control
I was thinking this would work, yet Steve Martin thought a little faster and quicker. The quick version: use Disk Utility to create a huge “Sparse” image (sparse means it only takes up as much space as the media on it). Mount that image, then import your files to the image. When you unmount the image, any Events or Projects on that image will be inaccessible — good for projects you don’t want visible all the time when you don’t want to put them on an external drive. This is also a potential workaround for using unsupported disk types like Xsan. For much more info on this, read this article by Steve Martin.
If you have any more tips, send them on. If you’d like to learn the new Final Cut Pro X and you live in or Brisbane, Australia, head over to my training site, TrainingBrisbane.com.
Finally, my new picture dictionary for iPad, Alphazed, is available on the iTunes App Store. Free worldwide, it makes use of Creative Commons images, linking back to the original photographers and to the wikipedia entries. There’s a colour, an animal, a place, a food and an object for every letter of the alphabet, and they’re not the first ones you’d think of.
If you like it, please rate it!
In bed: “I’m too hot, and too cold, and too warm.”
I can think of no more succinct way to show the importance of graphic design principles than this.
On Sunday 15 May 2011, my father died suddenly. I’m flying to the UK in a couple of days, and will likely be back in a couple of weeks from now. Thanks to many of you for your well wishes already, and I hope to be back on board in early June.
Ring your parents. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
If you take a look at The Artists Toolbox | Animation Magazine you’ll see a selection of interesting industry people profiled, including the heads of animation studios, artists working on feature VFX, and me, with my iPad apps and editing gigs. Yes, that’s right, my face, my words, etc. Thanks to the mag for the profile!
Kind of a shame to say that I’m a prolific blogger about when I took a month from actively writing on the thing, but better late than never, right? Now, to get that next iPad app out…
Me: Can I have a hug?
Hazel: They’re all puffed out of me again. They keep running in and out of me.
Originally at the new Photoshop Family feedback site, I’d like Photoshop to encourage people to use it the right way, rather than inviting them to rasterize layers unnecessarily and erase where masking would be a better choice. If you agree, say so here.
Ranting:
Please make it easier for users to use Photoshop the right way, and harder for them to use it wrongly.
For example, when someone tries to paint on a text layer, why not offer to create a new layer that uses the text layer as a clipping mask, rather than the current approach: saying it’s not possible and then berating the user. It would also be very useful to encourage masking instead of erasing — so why not just make the eraser, when used on the background layer, actually convert the layer to Layer 0 and add a mask? And how about removing the shortcuts from the ancient, painful, destructive Image > Adjust menu and moving them to the equivalent Adjustment Layers instead? (Shortcuts should still work on Image > Adjust when working on a Mask.)
I think you get the idea. It’s too easy to pick up Photoshop and get bad habits instantly.