• Apple Motion

  Create ‘freeze frame’ a la FCP?

  Posted by Dombass on November 22, 2005 at 11:59 pm

  Hey guys,

  Back in the day, I used FCP for motion graphics and compositing – don’t knock it! You can get some good stuff out of it if you have the time!
  One of the features I used the most was the ‘Make Freeze Frame’ command, in the ‘Modify’ list of commands.

  I am now older, wiser and richer (well, less poor) so I use Motion and AE (Prod Bundle) for the little motion graphics work I do.

  Have no complaints with AE (other than the truly horrid Adobe interface), but cannot find a ‘create still’ command in Motion!

  If you are not sure what I’m babbling about: I have a complex bunch of layers in the timeline that have all been sliding, scaling and whatnot. I want to select the final frame of this sequence, create a single still of it and then use this still as the background layer for the next set of animations.

  Can anyone help? I know this is an easy one – but, as ever, time is not on my side.
  My system if you need the info: PM G5 1.8DP, 6800 GT, 2 GB RAM, OS 10.4.3, Motion 2.0.1, Partridge in Pair Tree.

  Thanks!
  Dom

  PS If anyone tells me to read the manual I will weep in frustration all over my keyboard, probably electrocuting myself! Do you want that on your conscience?!
  I HAVE read the manual and I searched the PDF till Preview told me to forget it and get a life! I found nothing. Ta.

  Ryan Leimbach replied 20 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Noah Kadner

  November 23, 2005 at 6:59 am

  You can set the end behavior of a clip to loop or hold on the final frame via the media tab. Other than that you can always pop out one frame and reimport it.

  Noah
• 

  Dombass

  November 23, 2005 at 2:25 pm

  I see.

  I like the export/re-import idea. That would stress the system less than looping or holding since I’m using lots of blurs and varied opacities for the layers.
  Does that sound right?

  Shame there is no built in way of creating a still, though. I liked that about FCP.

  Thanks for your advice, Noah!

  Dom.
• 

  Ryan Leimbach

  November 24, 2005 at 5:48 am

  Try using the SCRUB filter located in the TIME section of the filter drop-down. Drop SCRUB onto the video clip. Move the playhead to the location where the freeze is to occur. Hit the I key to mark an In Point of the SCRUB. If your timeline is not set to display frames, click the stopwatch in the bottom left of the main window to change from time to frame display. Make note of the current frame number. Now display the dashboard if it is not currently displayed. Change the OFFSET FROM drop-down window to FIRST FRAME and change the OFFSET to the current frame #. Now the video should play and then freeze at the frame where the scrub filter kicks in. The Video will stay frozen until the scrub out point.

  Good Luck,
  Ryan

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