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Best way to edit text in FCPX
Hi there,
I’m really struggling with this. Over the last month or so I’ve been working on a series of English teaching videos which show a fair amount of text on screen.
These grammar points go along with a voiceover to which I’d like to be able to animate specific words when the speaker refers to them, ie. when he says ‘subject plus object…’ well, then very creatively, make the words ‘subject’ and ‘object’ larger, or change color – crazy, I know!
I had never tackled a project like this before, and the thing is that my current workflow involves Photoshop, lots of PNG files with transparency and highlighting plugins.
I use this because it seems almost impossible to work with titles for this – I don’t understand why but FCPX gets incredibly slow and choppy. I have used Pixelfilmstudios plugins in the past but they don’t serve for this purpose either.
Do you guys know any way of editing text in a quick way inside FCPX? Even with 3rd party plugins – I need to get my life back!
Thanks a lot !!
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3 Replies
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The Custom Title in FCPX allows you to change any of it’s parameters. So you could use that. Larry Jordan has a short tutorial on it in his Inside Tips:
https://www.theinsidetips.com/tip-888-secrets-of-the-custom-title/
If you want to use Photoshop. Create them oversized so you can enlarge them without out losing quality. If you’re editing in 1920×1080. Double or Triple that, depending on how much you want to enlarge the text.
Create JPEG images of the text you want on the screen.
If you want to change color, make 2. The first with the normal color. The second with the new color.
When you edit in FCPX, lay the jpeg on the timeline. It will reduce to fit the 1920 x 1080 timeline automatically. When you want to enlarge something, put a duplicate of the JPEG on top. Crop the word or phrase you want to enlarge. Then use the transforms to make the top clip any size you want. It will enlarge over the original text clip on the bottom.
To change color. Again, lay a duplicate clip on top then crop the word or phrase on the top clip and then use an effect to go from the bottom (original) text to the top (new color text).
I’ve attached a sample video of enlarging text on the screen that I had done using the JPEG directions above.
As I said earlier, you can do all this directly in FCPX with a Custom Title and the use of “compound clips”.
There is an in-depth tutorial on using the Custom Title. I couldn’t put my hand on it. But if you can find it, and take the time to learn how to control it, you can do just about anything with text.
Good luck.
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I am fairly sure there is at least on Title Card that blows up some of the text in sequence.
I forget the name, and when I have time I will search thru them.
I am surprised you did not look thru them before asking.
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I make effects for FCP X and have been intending to release something to do with text and titles. Besides changing the color or size of a specific word for a specified time period, what else would be good to be able to do… ?? I imagine the sizing up could be a offered with an option for an animation with a spring or bounce sort of effect. Maybe the color change could wipe horizontally onto the word… etc. Glow ? What else ? To match it with audio you need to be able to precisely keyframe the timing of when the effect is on etc. It’s sort of a karaoke lyrics kind of concept… Could also offer multiple layout options… single line, bullet points ? I once made this effect and offered it as a free download here on the Cow and years later people still use it ;
https://creativecow.net/forums/thread/need-custom-titlinganimated-sidebar-effect-similar/
Need custom titling/animated sidebar effect, similar to Pardon the Interruption
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