Specifications

Editing the Movie

The first part of creating this sample project is to edit the movie. As you edit your

movie in Final Cut Pro, you can use the other Apple post-production applications to

enhance your project.

Step 1: Capture and edit in Final Cut Pro

Capturing and editing your project’s video and audio will occupy most of your time.

Being familiar with your sources before starting this process can help reduce the

amount of unused video and audio you capture, saving time and hard disk space.

Step 2: Create the opening titles in LiveType

You can take advantage of LiveType to create visually appealing animated graphics for

your movie’s titles.

Although you can use the built-in Final Cut Pro text tools to create your movie’s

opening titles, you may want the titles to use a particular animated effect. Using

LiveType to create the opening titles allows you to use a wide variety of effects on the

text and provides complete control over the look of the titles.

You import LiveType projects into Final Cut Pro the same way you import other

assets—the LiveType project behaves just like any other clip your project might use. If

you need to make changes to the LiveType project while working in Final Cut Pro, you

can easily open the project in LiveType, make the changes, and then save the project

and go back to Final Cut Pro—the LiveType project clip automatically updates to

include the LiveType project changes.

See “Using LiveType With Final Cut Pro” on page 29 for more information.

Step 3: Add a compositing effect in Motion

Final Cut Pro includes extensive support for adding a variety of effects to your movie.

However, for those times when you need precise control over a complicated multilayer

effect or you want to add sophisticated animation or particle effects, using Motion can

make all the difference.

For example, if your movie has a section where you have a group of still images that you

need to have move onto and off of the screen over a synchronized background, you can

use Motion to create the effects. You can set In and Out points in the Final Cut Pro Timeline

to identify the area where the effect appears, and then export that section of your

sequence to Motion to use as the background. In Motion, you can easily add and

configure all aspects of the layers, even adding particle effects, and see it all play in real

time. Once you are satisfied with the result, you simply save it as a Motion project without

the background. When you go back to Final Cut Pro, you can import the Motion project

and place it in the Timeline. You can then go back to the Motion project and make

changes, and Final Cut Pro automatically updates to include the changes you made.

See “Using Motion With Final Cut Pro” on page 23 for more information.