scrolling titles

[Aaron Williams]

in the past, i’ve used after effects. it seems to do the job nicely. also, you need to make sure that they are not moving too fast, or they will strobe, just like footage will (it’s a product of the 24p framerate). the other thing i’ve tried is creating the titles in photoshop as one long image, then saving as an uncompressed format with an alpha (like targa) and keyframing that. it’s not the best solution, but it may solve your problem.

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Aaron Williams
https://www.reaction-films.com
https://www.roarnetwork.com

[Sean Oneil]

It’s a very difficult and annoying thing to do right. I use After Effects because it will tell you how many pixels per second it is scrolling. You gotta do the math and calculate it so that never lands in between any video lines. So for 720×480 NTSC, the titles need to scroll at 240 lines per second, 120, 60, etc. I’m not sure how you would deal with 24p footage. My brain isn’t working well enough right now to figure it out.

Sean

[Stephen Eckelberry]

Here is how I get to scrolling titles to look right:
1. I make a seperate timeling just for the end titles. In the sequence settings I change the Aspect Ratio to HD 1440 (use something bigger if you like), Pixel aspect ratio to square and no field dominance, compression: animation

2. I export the titles using QT conversion, image sequence, selecting TGA.

3. I then import the TGA sequence into timeline I need it for, adjusting size and ratio as needed

BTW to prepare titles properly before FCP, put your titles in a text file, changing to “make plain text”. then cut and paste that into your scrolling text. ALSO to have thing centered neatly, put an asterix in between the two sets of names or job description:
Harrison Ford*Indiana Jones
1st Asst. Camera*Joe Blow

Stephen Eckelberry

[Bob Cole]

[Stephen Eckelberry] “to have thing centered neatly, put an asterix in between the two sets of names or job description:”

Very interesting post, but I’m not following it and would appreciate a more step-by-step explanation. How do you work with titles over a moving video background? How does the asterisk make the titles center? And, is there a way within FCP to adjust the scrolling title’s timing to avoid strobing/blurring, and to make the scroll ramp to a stop for a closing static title like the copyright notice?

Bob C

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