Motion Tab usage?

I have a video clip of a picture of a man. I need to start out showing the whole picture and zoom in to his eyes which are not in the center of the picture. The tutorial I've been using is called "Motion Tab - Center and Scale for Pan and Scan". Is this the right tutorial to be using for this procedure? I've been using Center and Scale controls.

When using 'wireframe + image' in the Canvas, I try to drag the center of the wireframe towards the man's eyes but the whole picture moves rather than allowing me to put the X of the wireframe on the man's eyes. Also, I have to scale down the picture quite a bit so that I can see the Bounding Box. The picture is quite small then. Why doesn't the Bounding Box outline the normal size of the picture in Canvas?

I hope this is understandable. Thank you for your help.

Sheryl

You're new to effects, apparently, so you'd probably want to get a book on basic FCP features rather than rely on internet tutorials, which can be a bit too specific rather than covering all the concepts you need to know in a certain field.

The concept you're missing is keyframes. You are trying to start with the whole picture of the man, but end with only his eyes.

Consider the first position (whole picture) to be the beginning of a road trip, and the final position (eyes only) to be the destination.

If you only deal with Scale and Center, then FCP doesn't know that you want two different positions. It thinks you want the entire duration of the picture to be in one location. So you have to tell FCP that you want to get from A to B over a period of time, not just move the entire picture to B. Keyframes are the tools that tell FCP you want to do multiple locations over a certain period of time.

In the Motion tab, to the right of the number settings, you will see a number of buttons with a diamond on them. Those are the buttons for setting keyframes. You will also see a mini timeline with a playhead. This reflects where the playhead is on your main timeline. With the Motion tab open, drag the timeline playhead to the beginning of your clip. Now click on the keyframe buttons for Scale and Center. Now drag the timeline playhead to the end of the clip, click those buttons again.

Now you will see that the two little arrows to the sides of those keyframe buttons will be clickable. This allows you to jump between keyframes. Click on the right arrow to go to the keyframes at the end of the clip. Once there, you can either use the Wireframe on the Canvas or the numbers in the Motion tab (my own preferred method -- slower but more precise) to manipulate the motion settings of the image.


www.derekmok.com

Exactly what Derek says, and THEN you have to worry about whether or not your still really has enough resolution to zoom into the man's eyes-- if it's a movie clip you're out of luck, it's going to fall apart if you enlarge past 150% Scale in the Motion tab.

If it's a scanned photograph, you'll want to prep it precisely for your needs. Go here--

Photo Scanning for Video using ScanGuide Pro?

This is a simple system taking acocunt of your creative needs and tech limits.

- Loren
Today's FCP 4 / 5 keytip:
Preview unrendered effects with Option-P or Option-Backslash!

The FCP KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Loren is right -- without the resolution, the zoom won't look too hot. But there are also other ways to bring attention to the eyes without zooming (for example, matting out the areas around his eyes and blurring/blacking those areas, an iris effect, or a combination of these techniques with a smaller zoom). If you want to use effects in your editing palette, you'd also want to expand your vocabulary so that you have multiple options for expressing the same ideas, adaptible to different situations and media.


www.derekmok.com

if you are good with photo shop then you could also create 4 versions of the pic. 1st pic at full 2nd at +15, 3rd at plus 30 and 4th at plus what ever you need to get the close up of the eyes. in photoshop you can do some upresing to get better quaity. after that you can take those pics into fcp and place them consecutivly on the timeline and pu 25 frame crossdisolves beteewn them and get a cool look to the zoom. it will still be a little choppy but it wont jerk/jump as its played.
if you want to make it smoother just go back to photoshop and create new versions of the pic. however if it takes more than say 8 then you need to learn more about the features of fcp's motion tab and keyframing.

by the way each pic should only be on the screen 1- 2 secs. so there is a little math to do to figure out how long the total zoom will take.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> if you are good with photo shop then you could also create 4 versions of the pic. 1st pic at full
> 2nd at +15, 3rd at plus 30 and 4th at plus what ever you need to get the close up of the
> eyes. in photoshop you can do some upresing to get better quaity. after that you can take
> those pics into fcp and place them consecutivly on the timeline and pu 25 frame crossdisolves
> beteewn them and get a cool look to the zoom.

That doesn't make sense to me. Why would you use four files to do the job of one? Scan the picture at the large size and reduce its size in Final Cut. If you want to do this dissolve thing, copy and paste the still four times and apply different Scale settings.


www.derekmok.com

its a style thing derek.

its just another way of doing the same thing with a spin on its style of zoom. i use it for a lot of things. i may do a still of the last and then duplicate that frame 3 times ( total of 4 duplicates) then create flash volume metrics style transition between them. it creates a great out or in for music vids, car shows, concert vids. i often adjust rotation, center and filter effects to create progreassions.

now in his case i wouldn't suggest a flash transition but more of a soft disolve between them. maybe that non add you taught me about.

try it mok you will see it can be quite nice.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

And to correct a misconception about how wireframe manipulation works:

Quote

When using 'wireframe + image' in the Canvas, I try to drag the center of the wireframe towards the man's eyes but the whole picture moves rather than allowing me to put the X of the wireframe on the man's eyes.

The X marks the center of your clip, it still has the same center no matter where you move the clip. Instead of trying to "move the X" to the part of the image you want to be in the center of the canvas, you move the image until the part you want in the center is in the center of the canvas. This is a real-time move, what you see is how it will play.

Scott

> try it mok you will see it can be quite nice.

I'm not arguing the technique as an editing choice. I'm arguing against the methodology making four files when one big one will do. And going out into Photoshop to do this is a waste. Unless the four files were already scanned that way (eye only, ECU, MCU, etc.).


www.derekmok.com

yeah mok it isnt the best way to do it nor is it good for file count.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

J. Corbett -

Nothing wrong with that approach if you like the fragmentary look. But you could also do this from a single photo scanned deeply enough to hold up. I think you shoot yourself in the foot if you later decide you want to change one of the enlargements, or scrap them altogether for a smooth push or pull. Plus more files.

- Loren
Today's FCP 4 / 5 keytip:
Preview unrendered effects with Option-P or Option-Backslash!

The FCP KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com