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Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 22, 2013. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
In addition to the functions of a fully-fledged editing programme, Final Cut Pro also supports a large number of effects and compositing tasks. Of course, it is not as powerful as After Effects or even Shake, but the compositing options are largely sufficient to complete many smaller everyday tasks quickly and without having to switch to another programme.
Compositing and motion design in Final Cut Pro are subject to certain limitations. For example, the programme does not support 3D space, i.e. the import of 3D objects or camera data, nor can it handle vectors. To import still material, the source must be available as a bitmap file (with or without alpha) and saved in the RGB colour space. So if you receive image material from a customer, it is best to first check it in Photoshop, rasterise it and convert it before importing it into Final Cut Pro.
In principle, Final Cut Pro understands almost all common graphic formats – from Photoshop (.psd) with multiple layers to TIF, TGA, JPEG, BMP, PDF and all video formats that are saved in Quicktime format and whose codec is installed on the local machine. If you want to create a compositing with video and alpha, for example with renderings from After Effects or Cinema 4D, you should save your material in the Apple Animation Codec in order to retain the alpha information (over 16.7 million colours). Renderings from other workstations that do not output Quicktime files can be imported into Final Cut Pro as image sequences, for example in TGA or TIF format. Before importing, however, you should enter “User preferences – Edit – Still image duration: 1 frame” [Image 01].
Handling
A major advantage of Final Cut Pro is that all elements – whether video, photo, text or graphic – behave identically in the timeline and in the canvas window. Once you have learnt how to animate a graphic, you can also apply the process to a video or text. A simple example of compositing is the animation of a photo as a landscape pan. To do this, first import the image into Final Cut Pro, determine the length (e.g. by entering a timecode in the left-hand TC window of the viewer) and place the element in the timeline. Final Cut Pro automatically scales the image to the correct size to display it according to the sequence presets. However, as we want to carry out photo panning in the example, we need a larger display. We therefore open the element from the timeline in the viewer by double-clicking on it and change the scaling value under the “Motion” tab back to 100 %, i.e. the original size. To animate the image, first move the playhead of the timeline to the start of the animation or element and set keyframes for the parameters to be animated. In our case, we want to drag the image from right to left (“Centre” field in the viewer) and zoom out at the same time (“Scale” field in the viewer). To do this, we set one keyframe each for scaling and centre point by clicking on the small button with the diamond in the viewer, which then turns green. A small dot also appears on the tiny timeline to the right of the parameter. From the canvas display options, we select “Wireframe image” to be able to grab the image directly [Image 02]. At this point, we now define the starting point of the animation by moving the image to the desired position.
In the next step, we define the end position by moving the playhead of the timeline to the end of the element. You do not need to set another keyframe here, as Final Cut Pro automatically saves it as soon as you change a parameter. As we grab the image and drag it through the canvas, Final Cut Pro generates a movement path from the starting point to the point at which we release the image. This path describes the exact route that the image takes through the canvas. Once we have decided on an end point, we now change the value for the scaling, for example 60 %, in order to pan and zoom at the same time. This is already the first framework for the animation.
Faster and slower with Bézier curves
The animation is still far too unnatural at this stage: the zoom is too hard and the pan is too straight and too precise to look lively. We therefore use two little tricks: firstly, we use Bézier curves for the scaling and secondly, we change the movement path a little. To make the zoom a little softer, hold down the Ctrl or right mouse button and click on a keyframe of the “Scaling” parameter in the viewer and select “Bézier” from the context menu [Fig. 03]. We do the same with the second keyframe. This replaces the previously linear progression with a dynamic one that starts slowly at first, then accelerates and loses speed again before the end point, before coming to a complete standstill. Play the result in the timeline to check whether the progression now looks more natural. You can also grab the Bézier handles of the scaling parameters with the mouse and change them, for example to make the curve steeper or flatter. It makes sense to first grab the fine line below the scaling setting and drag it downwards to enlarge the scaling field. Using “Apple ” (plus on the numeric keypad) and “Apple -” (minus on the numeric keypad), you can also enlarge the view of the currently active window to work more precisely.
Now we change the course of the animation by taking a point on the movement path in the canvas and dragging it up or down [Fig. 04]. The image follows the movement while Final Cut Pro sets a new keyframe, as you have changed the original path. This new keyframe has two Bézier handles on the left and right, which you can use to edit the motion curve more precisely. Zoom into the image again using “Apple ” and “Apple -“. The points on the movement path mark the respective position of the image and thus influence the speed of the animation: If you grab one of these points and drag it outwards, you accelerate the object because it has to cover a longer distance in the same time. Drag the points ene nd s –
You can also see the changed movement point in the viewer under “Centre point”. If you do not like the diversions of the animation, click on the keyframe in the viewer while holding down the Ctrl key and select “Delete” to remove the keyframe and make the animation linear again [Fig. 05]. If you want to see the set keyframes in the timeline and move them in time if necessary, click on the tiny button at the bottom left of the timeline window. A graph with the respective keyframes appears below the elements. Hold down the Ctrl or right mouse button and click on this line. This allows you to select which parameters you want to display.
Other motion settings that you can apply to graphics, text or video include rotation (the rotation of the object) and changing the anchor point, i.e. the point around which the object rotates. You can also crop and distort elements in the timeline. In addition to the parameters in the Viewer, separate tools are available for this: The cropping tool “C” (for cropping) can be found in the tool palette as the second tool from the bottom. The distort tool “D” (for Distort) can be accessed by holding down the crop tool in the palette for a second.
Distort is often used when working with anamorphic clips in regular sequences as you can also adjust the aspect ratio of a clip in the Distort section. If you copy a standard PAL clip into an anamorphic sequence, you must change the aspect ratio to 33.33 (enter with a dot instead of a comma) in order to display the image correctly. If you copy an anamorphic clip into a standard PAL sequence, the aspect ratio must be -33.33. You should also scale the image to the value 133.33 to avoid black letterboxes in the image.
Acceleration
Of course you can speed up or slow down clips in Final Cut Pro, since version 4 even with time remapping, an acceleration within the clip. For simple, constant speed changes, activate the element in the timeline and select the “Speed” command from the “Modify” menu. A window appears in which you can enter the new duration of the clip or a speed value in per cent [Image 06]; over 100 % means faster, under 100 % means slower – in other words, exactly the opposite of the time stretching function in After Effects. To play a clip twice as fast, select 200 %; for slow motion, select 50 %. You should use whole numbers for the speed and, if possible, not perform any complex arithmetic operations; the result looks much better this way than with “crooked” numbers – although the display quality for time changes has improved since version 5.
Another note: If you change the speed of a clip in a sequence, this affects the position of all subsequent clips. If you do not want to change their positions, drag the clip in question to a higher track in which there is no other clip, lock all other tracks and only then speed it up or slow it down.
To change the variable speed within a clip, switch to the Viewer after opening the clip in question by double-clicking on it. Expand the “Variable speed” field and select “Variable speed” from the pop-down menu [Fig. 07]. The otherwise linear, temporal progression of the clip is transformed into a Bézier curve. It is important to understand that the timeline normally runs straight from bottom left to top right. If you now grab one of the Bézier handles and use it to change the curve, think of this line. If the new Bézier curve runs to the right of the imaginary line, the material will be played more slowly. If the Bézier curve runs to the left of it, it will play faster.
Try this out by grabbing the lower Bézier handle and pulling the curve to the top left. The clip speeds up at the beginning and slows down at the end. If you pull the handles down to the right, the clip initially runs slowly before picking up speed towards the end. The more powerful the curve, the more extreme the movement. For example, if you drag both Bézier handles to the centre so that the line runs horizontally, a still image is displayed over a short period of time. If the curve even runs to the bottom right, Final Cut Pro plays the clip partially backwards after and before it speeds it up again.
When working with variable speed, it is important to know that Final Cut Pro never changes the clip length itself. This means that the faster you speed up a clip at the beginning, the slower it will be at the end: a four-second clip will always be four seconds long, no matter how much you slow it down or speed it up. This is why the audio material (in contrast to linear acceleration or deceleration) does not react to the variable speed, but remains constant at 100 %.
Layer games
Final Cut Pro supports up to 99 video and audio layers, so that you can also import and process Photoshop files with several layers [Image 08]. However, you should rasterise the individual layers before opening a Photoshop file, as Final Cut Pro does not recognise layer effects properly.
After importing a Photoshop file, it has a sequence symbol in the browser. If you open the element by double-clicking, the image does not appear in the viewer. Instead, Final Cut Pro opens a new timeline to give you access to the individual layers. For example, if you have created an animation in Photoshop that is based on layers, you can arrange them in Final Cut Pro in a staircase and play them frame by frame like a flip-book [Image 09]. Of course, you still have access to the individual layers in the canvas and can move or rotate them, for example. Simply activate the relevant layer in the timeline and the “Wireframe” option in the canvas to be able to grab the element.
Once you have created an animation in this way, you can take the entire sequence and insert it into another sequence, i.e. merge sub-sequences into a master sequence. This method of working is particularly useful if you are animating the characters individually in an animated film in order to combine them later in a larger sequence.
Similar to Photoshop or After Effects, layers in Final Cut Pro can also be copied into each other using fill methods. These composite modes are particularly useful if you want to change the colour of an image without losing certain contrasts or other colours. Composite modes are also useful for text and shadows, as they draw much softer than simply changing the opacity.
For example, to create an evening sky that was recorded during the “blue hour”, select “Video generators – Mask – Colour” and colour this generator in royal blue. Now copy the element into the timeline above the relevant video clip, reduce the opacity if necessary and select the “Soft light” fill method from the context menu. The blue now gently covers the original image, with the generator only colouring the grey shades of the original blue. All other colours are retained by the fill mode, resulting in a much more realistic look.
