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I have 350 After Effects movies – how to add a dissolve between each?
I have always wondered if there was a way to do this:
I have a project that is comprised solely of After Effects movies. All 350 movies are 11 seconds in duration each. I want to add a 30 frame dissolve between each movie. If I just throw all the movies in the timeline there won’t be any handles to make a dissolve. Do I have to open each movie in the viewer, mark an out point at 10 seconds, then edit it into the sequence? Is there a quicker way to accomplish this?
Thanks.
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15 Replies
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Highlight all the movies in the Browser, drag them onto the CANVAS and use the option OVERWRITE WITH TRANSITION.
Shane
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If each file alternated between video 1 & video 2 and was placed with a 30 frame overlap, then make a 30 frame opacity ramp with keyframes at the head & tail of one clip and then copy>paste attributes>opacity to all clips and you have the desired effect.
Might be faster than opening up each clip and placing I/O markers.
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If you have FCP7, then simply select all (command-a) then hit command-t to add the default transition.
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I haven’t tried this, but one approach you could try is selecting all the clips in the browser and making one huge multiclip with 350 angles (I don’t know if FCP has a limit). Then you cut the one multiclip into the sequence and trim it on each side 15 frames. Take this trimmed clip and cut it 350 times (10 times, reselect, cut 34 times = 350). Here’s the tedious part, now you have to ctrl click each clip and change the active angle 1,2,3 etc to 350. Select all the clips, ctrl click them and choose “collapse multiclips” which will restore the original names.
It may sound like a pain, but at least you’ll only have to trim once. Ctrl clicking the clip to switch the angle is a litte faster than manually doing all the trimming for each one.
Now add your multiple transitions. If you have FCP7 then you can select all the clips in the timeline, and drag the cross dissolve to your timeline onto the clips (this drag can be a little finicky, but release your drag over the center of a selected clip as opposed to its edge. The end result will be multiple transitions.
If you don’t have FCP7, you can do it the old way listed in the first post.
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Shane – I had actually already tried that. The first and last dissolve do come out as 30 frames, but all the other dissolves in between are 15 frames. BTW – my default transition is set to 30 frames (1:00)
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Wouldn’t this require me to “line up” each of the 350 movies?
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[Ken Jones] “Wouldn’t this require me to “line up” each of the 350 movies?”
I misread your first post. In FCPs browser, do all the ‘media start’ points start @ 01:00:00:00?
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “In FCPs browser, do all the ‘media start’ points start @ 01:00:00:00? “
No. They all start at 00:00:00:00.
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I changed the default transition to 2:00 (60 frames) and it made all of the dissolves 1:00.
Hurray! Thanks for everyone’s help. I was (and still am) perplexed. -
[Ken Jones] ”
No. They all start at 00:00:00:00.”OK, that’s cool. Then you can simply type in the in point for your first clip (which should be 00:00:00:15 right in the browser under the “In” column. Then (and this will be a bit tedious, but ok) you option drag that in point to the next in point. You can then do the same for the out, out point is 00:00:10:15, then option drag the out point to each clip. Add them all to the timeline, then select all and hit command-t.
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