Yellow Subtitles- Attributes Mult. Clips

Hi,

I'm using FCP 5.0's standard text generator, and I have a specific type of yellow subtitle that I wanted to apply to many subtitles that are white. I basically wanted to change the color of the subtitle, but didn't want to copy other attributes as some subtitles have different positioning due to single/double line subtitling. Any advice how to accomplish this would be most appreciated!

Thanks,
Alexander

As far as I know, there's no way to change a colour attribute over multiple Text or even Title 3D subtitles. If you have a lot of these, you could try putting a yellow colour matte over the text and then put the colour matte into Travel Matte - Alpha mode (Modify - Composite Mode - Travel Matte Alpha), like this:



It should turn all the text yellow. That way you can just cut and paste the yellow colour matte and then select the whole track for the Modify - Composite, instead of going into each text object and changing the colour by hand. I've done a quick test and this seems to work no matter what the colour of the original text was.


www.derekmok.com

Hi Derek,

Thanks for the awesome explanation and diagram to boot. I was wondering though, would the color matte have to be matching individual clips or could i just put a solid block of yellow matte over the entire timeline? Because if I must have each block of yellow matte the exact same length as the text, I might as well go in and change the color individually of the text from the outset.

Thanks,
Alexander

You could just put a block over the entire timeline, and then just blade out and delete the bits you don't need. Less rendering, and less pressure on the system trying to figure out what's visible and what's not.

It will work to not delete those bits, though.

"Korean Tiger"?

Yes, you *can* put the entire colour matte over the timeline -- the Travel Matte Alpha will negate the matte over your normal footage; only what's directly under that video track will take on the yellow. But as Jude points out, that's a lot of unnecessary rendering.

The fastest way to do this is to size the matte over one of your text objects, on a clean video track, then copy and paste, using the default Arrow tool to match the length of the mattes to your text pieces. Trust me, it'll be a helluva faster than double-clicking each text, going into colour, and adjusting the values.


www.derekmok.com

there's an app called "Traffic" that uses XML.
it'll take all your project or timeline with white subtitles and make you a new one with yellow.

we used a technique similar to dereks to create "karaoke" subtitles quickly and easily on "Rampage" (a doc with a lot of rap in it.)
i should write that up one day if you're interested...

Jude:
"You could just put a block over the entire timeline, and then just blade out and delete the bits you don't need."

best way to apply would be to make the subtitle track the only auto-select track and the target track.
select the leading edge of the text to move from block to block,
superimpose edit (F12) to lay the colour over.
you may have to hit enter after the edit to re-select the text leading edge, then hit down arrow twice to move to the next block.
so
down, down F12
or
enter, down, down F12.
make that a macro in Quickkeys, and you'd be done in no time!

cheers,
nick

Hi,

My TitleExchange will also allow to swap colors (or generators) - as long as all resulting generators are of same type and don't use private data like Boris.

Regards
Andreas

of course, i should have remembered that:

check out Andreas's tools here:
[www.spherico.com]

> best way to apply would be to make the subtitle track the only auto-select track and the
> target track.

I just found another way to speed this up:

1. Duplicate all your titles on the video track above. Simple Copy-Paste; make sure you use the Auto-Select buttons to paste onto the right track.

2. Make the yellow colour matte into a Freeze-Frame (SHIFT-N).

3. Copy (APPLE-C) the Freeze-Frame of your yellow colour matte. Select the dupes of those titles you had made, the top layer. Paste Attributes (OPTION-V), Content. Now go to Modify - Travel Matte Alpha on all of them.

Boom, the entire timeline done!

It would've been nice to be able to skip the Freeze-Frame step, but that's to fool FCP -- for some reason, you can't use Paste Attributes - Content if you're copying a Color Matte object.


www.derekmok.com

Derek,

That's a very cool trick.

Andreas

NIce one Derek. Speedy.

That is a good trick Derek. Can I use it for a tip/trick O the week? Wanna write it up?

Michael Horton
-------------------

> That is a good trick Derek. Can I use it for a tip/trick O the week? Wanna write it up?

Sure thing. Give me a day or two -- got a *really* time-consuming job coming up tomorrow.


www.derekmok.com

A very cool tip and an FCP feature request rolled into one! Master-affiliate *should* work on if the color is cut from a single source clip! Then you simply adjust the color souce. Surprised that doesn't work!

- Loren
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