Cutaway to still pic ?

[Simon Ubsdell]

Two ways of doing this:

Either go to the Inspector/Spatial Conform tab and choose Fill from the selector; or select the crop tool from beneath the Viewer and choose Crop (more flexibility because you can choose the area that will fill the frame).

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Andy Neil]

Also, if you click the crop icon in the viewer, you’ll find the Ken Burns effect although it may be more manual than iMovie, I don’t know how it works there.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Don Smith]

All good suggestions from those above this message, but take one small step toward doing it better and, in the Inspector, Scale the image to fill in the frame then position it (also in the Inspector) for the part you want to show. It other words, you’ll be cropping your picture to fill the 16×9 frame.

Or, if you need to show the whole picture but not see the main video around it, put something larger in the layer between the main video and the picture. A black or a white background to be simple, or, one popular technique is to use a copy of the image only larger and blur it. That’s how the network news shows usually showcase older 4×3 video in a 16×9 HD frame. You see the edges of the 4×3 video copied into the pillars on either side but magnified and blurred and even brought down to black and white.

Don Smith
NewsVideo.com

NewsVideo.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Don Smith] “All good suggestions from those above this message, but take one small step toward doing it better and, in the Inspector, Scale the image to fill in the frame then position it (also in the Inspector) for the part you want to show. It other words, you’ll be cropping your picture to fill the 16×9 frame.”

I’m interested why you think this is a better route than using the crop tool …?

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Don Smith]

The Crop tool works great. I’m just an under-the-hood kind of guy and so I tend to do things manually when I can for the understanding of what’s happening to the video. It helps solve problems when you know the why of something. But my suggestion is only good if you only need to resize the video and forget it.

That’s where the Crop tool is better (if you are going to set multiple keyframes). In Trim mode there’s a bug or a use I don’t understand because you’ll get a wavy movement after setting the second keyframe. I found a way to work around that wave problem (under the hood, remember?) but its a lot of work when you can just use the Crop tool to effect multiple changes to happen the way you expect.

NewsVideo.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

Got you – thanks, Don.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Matt Degennaro]

[Don Smith] “Or, if you need to show the whole picture but not see the main video around it, put something larger in the layer between the main video and the picture.”

Don,

this is exactly what I need to do – but I can’t figure out how. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Don Smith]

I’m going on the assumption you already have something in the primary storyline, probably narration or something and you want to lay your 4×3 video above it and cover the pillars off to the side.

Put the playhead at the point where you want the 4×3 video to begin. Select a range on your 4×3 video and press Q to place it above your primary storyline as a connected clip.

Do the above three times so that you have your 4×3 clip stacked as three copies above the storyline.

Highlight the first copy of the clip just above the main storyline and, in the Inspector, change its X position so that it’s left edge is touching the left edge of the 16×9 frame. You’re just shifting the clip furthest to the left without it going out of frame. In the Inspector, go to the Color area and click the right-facing arrow to get to the color boards>Saturation, and bring down the main slider on the left to make the clip black and white. Finally, put a Gaussian blur (Effects) on it to blur it a little.

Do this same treatment to the next clip above, only slide it to the right edge.

The top copy of your clip will remain centered and normal.

That’s the start. You may want to put a frame around the top copy of your clip. Maybe not.

You could also make the three clips into a Compound Clip and dissolve it in and out.

Don

NewsVideo.com

[Matt Degennaro]

Thanks for answering Don.

I actually found out by messing around with it – that “append to storyline” worked quite nicely. It cutaway and no background video.

thanks for replying – your advice will no doubt come in really handy very soon.