Credit Rolls – Any thoughts?

[Bret Williams]

Use photoshop to create a long text layer, and simply animate it in FCP. Make sure you use one of only 2 scrolling speeds that work for video. 120 lines per second if you want the text to be read, 240 if not. This will keep you from getting any flicker whatsoever and ensure perfectly sharp text. So, for example if your first keyframe were at 0,0 then one second later the position of the text would be 0,120 and a second after that 0,240 etc.

You can find the details at https://www.adamwilt.com/Tidbits.html

[John Christie]

I do the same thing, create a long photoshop document. But I animate it in After Effects with motion blur and field rendering turned on. This will give you a lot more choices of speeds you can use.

Cheers

John Christie

[Chris Babbitt]

Title 3D (Boris) does a great title roll.

[Bret Williams]

Sorta. You should always use field rendering IMHO. I only use motion blur if I have the time or I’m mixing non field rendered stuff (like film footage) with CG stuff.

Using AE can make different speeds look ok, but it’s no replacement for the Adam Wilt method. Adding motion blur may help the interlacing problems, but it’ll make the text blurry.

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

Of course, if the FCP keyframe editor had a units per second readout, like After Effects (even Premiere) has, these things would be much easier 🙂 Also, AE’s reduce interlace flicker (not motion blur, which is about simulating a shutter rather than dealing with interlace flicer) helps a lot.

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo(AT)adolforozenfeld.com

[Herb Sevush]

Graffiti has a good credit roll feature, if you can get a version of Graffiti that will work with your current version of FCP, which is not always the easiest thing to do. Also, for much less than Graffiti, CHV makes a CG plug-in for FCP that includes a good Credit Roll program. You can create your roll in a word processor, spell check it, and then paste it into the plug-in – multiple formats, ability to integrate graphic files into the roll, etc.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Bret Williams]

Reduce interlace flicker is just the same as FCP’s flicker filter, no? Both just a directional (vertical) blur, that’s all.

It would be nice if FCP had lots of the keyframing of AE. Gotta hope some of that gets into “extreme” or whatever the next version is called. We’re pushing 2 years since an upgrade now.

As for the pixels per second on a credit roll, you really can’t find much easier math.

[Pxlmvr]

I’ve always used scrolling text under the text generator button in your viewer. I know this has been an issue for a lot of people, but I’ve always gotten great scrolling and by merely shortening or lengthening your clip, the speed adjusts to the new length. This makes hitting your time at the end of a program a snap.

Here are my settings:
Font: Helvetica CY
Size: 18
Style: Bold
Alignment: Left
Color: off white
Spacing: 2
Leading: 28%
Indent: 10
Gap Width: 5%
Fade Size: 0%
Direction: Up
Auto Kerning: Checked

I leave this as a template that I can just copy and paste over any program.

pxlmvr

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

[Bret Williams] “It would be nice if FCP had lots of the keyframing of AE. Gotta hope some of that gets into “extreme” or whatever the next version is called. We’re pushing 2 years since an upgrade now.”

2 years? FCP’s keyframing model has remained the same since v1 in 1999. It already had a few shortcomings for the standard back then. In 2007, it’s really inadequate.

[Bret Williams] “As for the pixels per second on a credit roll, you really can’t find much easier math.”

Well, the way it works in AE and even Premiere Pro (which has the old AE keyframing model) rather than making math easy, simply takes math out of the picture. You have a speed readout that tells you the units per second for any operation. No math, just dragging keyframes.

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo(AT)adolforozenfeld.com

[Bret Williams]

Quite aware the keyframing hasn’t changed, ever. I was stating that the program hasn’t had an upgrade in almost 2 years.

In P Pro it may show the data as you drag keyframes, however you still have to actually know what speed (pretty much one) works for a credit roll. They could step it up to 1996 Avid Technology and actually only utilize the speeds that work. Yes, the old avid credit roll worked like a hardware one. It would adjust line spacing on the fly and choose an appropriate speed to fit what you’ve created. All in the bgrnd without ANY data needed or displayed. And there wasn’t any rendering. Of course the thing cost a hundred grand. 😛