Understanding Stop-Motion editing with FCP

[Bill Dewald]

FCP really isn’t the tool for this job, for a number of reasons.

Basically, FCP wants a standard video frame. It absolutely does not like oversized stills.

I’d recommend after effects.

[Fernando Honesko]

So anyway, I will have to deal with rendering all the time. Be it with the actual photos or the self-contained videos?

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Fernando,
As Bill points, your picture size is off the FC specs.
Also PhotoJPEG probably is not the best codec to get RT.
I agree with Bill too about using AE (or Motion, Shake, etc) instead of FC to do this task.

[Fernando Honesko] “And, at last but not least, I have created a , for exemple, Apple Prores Codec sequence and exported a QTime movie in HD 1440×1080 and it stills asks me for render. “
If the movie needs to be rendered is because the movie and the sequence setting do not match.
BTW, I would recommend you to go 1920×1080 Square pixels instead of 1440×1080 HD pixels.
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Rafael Amador]

Stills have to be always rendered.
The video only if the setting clips-sequence do not match.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Bill Dewald]

If you export, for example, ProRes format QTs from After Effects, you can then do the editing in Final Cut.

Build you animation shot by shot in AE, and then sequence them in FCP. Thats the way I like to work.

[Fernando Honesko]

Sorry the ignorance guys!

Just trying to understand:
I should then, create the image sequence in AE and then export a 1920×1080 .mov and use it to my edits in FCP?
Right?

Would it be 1080p, right?

And, secondly, a simpler way for a non AE user, would be export the Image sequence with QTime, in the right codec for the Final Cut sequence?

Did I get it? Or am I still lost?

Cheers and Thanks again!

[Bill Dewald]

You got the AE/FCP workflow down – use AE to take your odd sized stills and make a video ready QT – 1080p (24 or 30) would be fine.

Not sure of the best way to proceed without AE. You will need to transcode to a video format somehow…

[Rafael Amador]

[Fernando Honesko] “And, secondly, a simpler way for a non AE user, would be export the Image sequence with QTime, in the right codec for the Final Cut sequence? “
If you can not do it in AE, try Motion. The reason to go to one of those applications is that can make a better downscaling than FC.
If you can not do it with any of those, try FC setting “Render Motion Effects: Best”. This should help.
Avoid QT, you have no control over the process.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[David Bogie]

[Fernando Honesko] “We are shooting all the stills with a SLR in something around 3888×2592 to create the animation in a cool quality and also to be able to resize it and control what’s in the scene. “

Fundamental misunderstanding of a suitable workflow. You should be expertly deciding on your framing and movement in the camera like a cinematographer, not making it up in post production.

Shooting on an SLR can be a total disaster. You must carefully and expertly determine your exposure and not change it. Your focus points and depth of field must be expertly determined.

Since the best HD video is only about 2000 pixels on the wide side, shooting at almost 4k is sucking up 3 times the storage space and processing time than you really need.

I wish you all the luck but you should heed the advice here, go back to your crew and re-think your entire production workflow. You are wasting precious resources on an ill-fated project.

There are no real secrets to shooting stop motion animation with DSLR cameras. The crew that worked on “Coraline” have been quite open about their techniques. Easily researched.

bogiesan

[Rafael Amador]

Just to add something else: Avoid bringing JPEG stills to FC. PNG TIFFS or any other uncompress format will make the things easier for FC.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com