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Extending keyframes beyond clip range
Scenario …
I have two still photos with animated motion, a la Ken Burns effect. I dissolve between the two clips. With keyframes at the beginning and end of the clip, there is no motion during the half second of the dissolve because the keyframes don’t extend to the handles. In FCP7 and Premiere pro, I can just drag those keyframes to the left and to the right, outside the range of the transitions. That way the animation begins before and after the in and out to avoid jerky start and stops on my animation. I’m not finding any way of doing this in FCPX. In the keyframe editor, the keyframes are confined within the in and outs of the clip. Am I missing something? Or is FCPX missing something?
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7 Replies
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There are a few ways to do this but it depends a bit on what you’re applying the keyframes to…
You can LIFT the clip you’re keyframing from the storyline and drag it out to extend your keyframes then return it to it’s original length.
You can do vrtually the same thing wihout lifting the clip if you use the precision editor on a clip that’s positioned between two others.
You can Break Apart and extend keyframes on the video while the audio remains fixedANd if you’re working on a compound clip, you can just double click it to open the source clip and extend the range and therefore the keyframe possibilities of the original clip in the connected clip view which typically shows more of the head and tail of the “nested” clip.
There are other ways, but I use all these a good bit depending on the context.
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Very helpful. Thanks! I’ve really only been working exclusively in FCPX for a few weeks – basic in and out stuff. I’ll try these out. I haven’t really delved deep into the precision editor, and that seems like the most logical place to go.
I appreciate your quick response.
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Adding the dissolve automatically extends the length of the clip to the end of the dissolve in the keyframe editor, you have to move the end keyframe after you’ve added the dissolve. Or, work blind just like I did in legacy. I’d add the dissolves first, then in the viewer go to the home and end (then back up 1 frame) and apply keyframes there. I was working with only a wireframe visual of course since it was at the beginning and/or end of a dissolve. Once again, another app, Avid, has this keyframing thing right. Even back in 1996-2000 when I was using Avid, it automatically had a start and end keyframe. If those were the only two you changed, then they would remain at the start and end of the clip, no matter how long you made the clip. It defaulted to what you wanted most of the time. If you didn’t want that then you had to do a workaround.
This was something that was throwing Avid to FCP editors for a loop for, well, ever.
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This is actually pretty easy to do in FCPX.
I usually put my keyframes in, then the dissolves.
Now select your clip, ctl-v to open the video animation. You should see your keyframes on the clip in the timeline, sort of like legacy FCP. The expanded video clip will show all the way through the end of the transition, so it’s a simple matter to click on the keyframe, and drag it to the end of the clip, which should be the end of the transition.
In fact, I usually just grab two random points to create the keyframes, knowing that I’ll drag them out to the end of the clip. It’s more difficult if the keyframes are already beyond the end of the transition. Then you’ll need to extend the clip to reveal the keyframe in the video-animation, then scale it back.
If you’re doing simple ken burns pans and zooms, why not use the built-in ken burns effect. It’s under the crop menu.
The Ken Burns effect will adjust itself to keep the movement til the end of the transition. It will automatically adjust as you change the clip or transition length. It’s fairly bomb-proof.
———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
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I don’t use the built in effect because I want more control over my moves than what a plugin will allow.
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Me neither. It eases in and out. I use the crop function which is nearly the same, but is linear. No easing.
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I have this same issue and have a follow up to your answer…
When you say:
You can do vrtually the same thing wihout lifting the clip if you use the precision editor on a clip that’s positioned between two others.How do I use the precision editor to extend the keyframe beyond the clip? When I go into the precision editor, I can’t see the keyframes at all (which I usually do by pressing ctrl-v). How do you manipulate the keyframes in the precision editor?
Thx.
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