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18 FPS in FCP? Cow friends please advise!
Hey Cow friends,
Today was a difficult day – a seemingly minor request snow balled into a headache for me and I am hoping to get this squared away before i go back into work today. I am using FCP 6.0.4 btw…
I was given an animation Quicktime with some lower third graphics on it and I was asked to cover up / mask out some of the text…here are the specs of the file:
640×480
square pixel
None – field dominance
18 FPSFirst by accident I brought the QT file into an uncompressed 10 bit 29.97 NTSC sequence and realized that it was now 720×486 and that i had to either adjust the sequence settings or start over with a new sequence which matched the mov’s specs.
So I made a color matte using the dropper tool in the viewer to match the color of the background the lower third rests on, adjusted the matte size to fit just over the text that needed to be covered using the crop tool and image/wire frame.
When I then tried to adjust the sequence setting and / or make a new sequence and try again i could not get the frame rate to be 18fps – i kept getting an error message even though i had the sequence set to animation, 640×480, square, none field dom, etc…
So my first problem was that i could not make a sequence that had a frame rate of 18fps is this impossible in FCP?? The second problem is that when I exported the 640×480 qt some of the picture was getting cut off even though the sequence settings were set to match the file (640×480) – in the end i had to use a 10-bit uncompressed ntsc sequence so that nothing was getting cut-off. The bottom left corner where the text existed was getting cut off in the export i made – i re-checked the sequence setting and they were 640×480 so i don’t know why this is happening…
Please if anyone can help me figure this out today I will be so grateful and in debt to the kind soul/s who have thoughts and wisdom to bestow.
thank you
best
Lisa -
8 Replies
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Where did this media come from?
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Also, do you have after effects?
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Sorry I disappointed you Lisa – I am going to give it another try then:
– Import your file into FCP.
– Open it in the Viewer (no timelines involved)
– Drop a Effect>Video>Timecode Generator onto the clip in the viewer
– In the filter settings make sure that font color and back color are the same (so you can’t see the digits anymore) and adjust size and position
– Select the clip in the browser and do File>Export>Quicktime Movie with “self-contained” selectedAlternatively you could drop in a Matte>Mask Shape instead of the TC Generator, so you have more options to tweak the shape – but the color will be constrained to black.
This is really a workaround, but I just tried it and it works, and you seem to be in a hurry.
Jaap
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hey there, so yes i have after effects but have yet to ever use it so unless there is a simple way to explain i prob should wait to use it when i actually know the basics at least right…the media came to me as a low res 3-d previz – its a animation qt at 640×480 @ 18fps
thanks in advance G!
best Lisa
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wow so i dont need to use a timeline? and besides the timecode filter the mask shape is also a filter effect?
I will give this a try and any other advice or info would be great
thank you so much!
Lisa -
The nice thing about After Effects is that you can work in 18fps and 640×480. Bring the movie into AE and then drag the movie onto the create new composition icon and everything should be set up for you.
Then make a new solid, eye drop the color and mask it out to the shape you need.
Render back to animation and away you go!
The only thing is, are you sure is 18fps? It might be what QT is telling you and it can sometimes lie, but see what AE tells you when you import it. I’d imagine it’d be 15 or 12 fps (as those are half frame rates of real video frame rates). Why would they do 18? Just speculating here…
Jeremy
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That’s right, this is a way to get the job done without a timeline.
I guess you can find another filter that can do the job better than what I suggested – but I don’t know.
Mask Shape is an effect (look in Effects > Matte) – for your purpose you need to select ‘invert’ in the settings, you can tweak horizontal and vertical scale and move it to the position you want through ‘center’.
Jaap
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thank you!!!
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