Lens Flare Transition

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Clifford L. Frazier] “I try to put a transition on two clips and they won’t take.”

You must have “handles” (“extra footage”) on one or both of two adjacent clips to allow a dissolve (or other “Mixing” transition).

So, assuming you wanted a 1 sec. transition between any two ten-second clips:

a) You’d need at LEAST 11 seconds total length (one second of “extra footage”) on the end of the FIRST clip

b) Or, you’d need at LEAST 10.5 seconds total length on BOTH clips (half sec. of “extra footage” at the end of the FIRST clip, and half sec. of “extra footage” at the beginning of the SECOND clip.

c) Or, you could make the “Out-point” several frames EARLIER in the first clip and/or make the “In-point” several frames LATER in the second clip and the transition could then be the length that you moved the point(s).

-OR-

You could make a STILL-FRAME of the last frame of your first clip and dissolve THAT out for as long as you want.

-OR-

Change the SPEED of your clip(s) (slow-mo) and that will allow for a longer dissolve length.

[Clifford L. frazier]

Thank you for your response, but the clips have much more than 10 secs of video. I’m getting an x on the cursor when I try to put the transition between the clips. What is so frustrating is this only happens on some clips. I can razor blade on the clip I’m having trouble with and the resulting two ciips will accept the transition with no problems. I can put the transtion on other clips on the timeline with no problem. But for some strange reason, with no apparent rhyme or reason, FCP capriciously choose to disallow a transtion between certain clips or it makes the transition only a half second long. Or it will only allow the transition to show on one clip but not between the clips. I sure hope someone can help me.

[Arnie Schlissel]

You might want to look through what’s available at either toolfarm.com or pluginz.com. Both sell a wide variety of plugins for FCP. Also look specifically at the sets from CGM & CHV, they might have such plugins as transitions, or if they’re not specifically transitions, it’s often possible to make use of one as a transition by adding it to both clips & keyframing the parameters on one end to take you into the tranny, & the other to take you out.

Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com

[David Rowan]

I’m going to try and say the same thing as Matt, but in a different way. Its not about how long your clips are, but weather or not they overlap.

If you are at the very last frame of clip “A” and then you lay down clip “B” from its very first frame then you have no overlap. Imagine taking one brick and laying it down right next to another brick, they are butted end-to-end. Like this:
[++++Clip A++++][===Clip B===]

The problem is most transitions, like a dissolve, combine the two images for a moment. That means that they need to overlap. Like this:
[++++Clip A++++]
…………..[===Clip B===]

I’m not talking about using two video tracks in the timeline. They can be (and sometimes have to be) on the same video track, its just that you need to have a little extra video at the end of clip “A”, and a little extra video at the start of clip “B”. Thats what Matt called “Handles”.

The fix for your current situation is to look at the duration of the effect (lets assume its 1 second or rather, 30 frames). At each point where the transition is not working go back about 15 frames from the edit and mark an “in”, then go to the point 15 frames after the edit and mark “out” now delete and close up the section. You now have 15 extra frames at the end of clip “A” that you don’t see, and 15 extra frames at the start of clip “B” that you don’t see. You should be able to add the effect, and it will use those unseen extra frames (handles) to make the effect.

Of course I’m completly ignoring the problems this will cause with your audio, if thats all finished. If you delete a second around every video edit your going to have some other adjustments to make.

In the future make sure you capture your clips with a little extra video at the beginning and end. In the preferences you can actually set FCP to do this automatically (“add handles”). Or when you are laying down your clips make sure the IN-POINT is a few frames in from the first frame of the clip, and the OUT-POINT is a few frames back from the last frame of video in the clip.

As for the lense flare, there is a transition I downloaded from Eureka called “Vapor Accross” that isn’t quite a lense flare, but gives some of the same feel. Its actually more like someone opened a film camera back and over-exposed a section of movie film. Sorry I cant recall the URL.

DWR

[Duncan Craig]

I make my own lens flare transitions. Make a lens flare move in Motion for example.

Where the clip starts black, the flare fades up and animates across screen (diagonally for example) in the middle of the clip, it’s at full brightness (take a bit of fiddling with the parameters of the flare plugin) and full screen white, then continues to move and fade out.

You can screen key this on another layer, centered over the cut (or short mix) between footage clip in the timeline, it’ll do the trick really well. And to mix things up, rotate the flare clip using flips and mirror filters to make it move in different directions.

Much cheaper that paying for more plugins, once you have made it’s yours, just keep a copy of the media.

As regards your x cursor, as said above, it’s because you don’t have enough handles on the clips in the timeline.

[Graeme Nattress]

Try http://www.nattress.com Set 2!

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP