How to mix aspect ratios

[David Battistella]

is someone going to be fired based on how this question is answered?

Another question, for you.

are you outputing the sequence at 4×3 or 16×9.

Of course this footage can be mixed.

IN A 4×3 sequence:
The 16×9 would have to be blown up to fix the frame if you do not want letter boxing,

IN A 16×9 sequence:

The 4×3 would be blown up (cutting off the top and bottom)

I hope nobody gets gassed over this.

David

Peace and Love 🙂
Read my Blog
https://blogs.creativecow.net/DavidBattistella

[Vicki Vasilopoulos]

David,

Rest assured that no one will be fired over this — my intern is still learning his craft, and I assumed there was a way to do this. Because most of the footage is in 4:3 we would output in 4:3. But exactly what are the steps involved in “blowing up” the 16:9 footage (so that I can explain it to him in a way that is clear?

[Don Greening]

[Vicki Vasilopoulos] “But exactly what are the steps involved in “blowing up” the 16:9 footage”

You don’t have to. 16:9 footage is the same height as 4:3 so all you have to do is what’s called a “centre punch” of your widescreen clips. Create your 4:3 sequence and drag your first 16:9 clip into it. FCP will automatically letterbox the clip. Double-click the clip to load it into the viewer. Click on the scale parameter tab in the viewer and scale the clip to 100%. In the canvas window now you’ll see the clip filling the frame but the sides are cut off. You can also accomplish the same thing in the canvas window by dragging a corner of the clip until the top and bottom fill the frame. Anyway, after you’ve scaled up the first 16:9 clip in the viewer just hit “Cmd – C” to copy that clip’s attributes to the clipboard. Drag the rest of your widescreen clips into the timeline, highlight them all and the hit “Option -V” to paste the first clip’s attributes on to all the other 16:9 clips. All your 16:9 clips are now centre punched to fit the 4:3 sequence. Go for coffee.

– Don