[Dananderiq]

Zak,

Thanks for sticking with me. At this point, I think I’ve got the answer from all the help on this thread. The answer is FCP isn’t going to let me do it, unless I do it by hand. Not the answer I was hoping for but oh well.

Oliver probably is right, I SHOULD use AE. Unfortunatley I don’t have it or know it. So using in on this project is out of the question, (as with motion – my gracphic card won’t even run it)

but just incase anyone stumbles across this thread in the future, I’ll to clarify what I am trying to do,

1) I’m actually not try to do motion graphics, but the complete opposite. Something FCP should be able to handle fine.
Instead of taking a 1 sec still frame and animating it with a digital camera move, I want to break that clip up into 15, 2 frame stills and then place each of those stills along the path of the digital camera move. So instead of using key frames and focing FCP to interpolate the inbetween frames (which it isn’t good at and creates a frame blending), it would just play back an image sequence.

I know FCP can handle it, it’s just a question of it FCP has an easy option for how to do that. PLacing stills by hand/eye would never look 100% right. The only way I would know how is to get out a pen, pad and calculator and do the math. Then plug in the values to each still – not an efficient use of time.

I’ve given up that this will happen on this project and I’ll jus tlive with the frame blending and faster animation.

2) You’re right, 4:2 is the same ratio of 2:1. I’m still going from A to B. But I’m not concerned with ratios. That’s the easy part, I’m concerned with frame rate. My hand drawn animation is at 15fps and the digital camera moves are animating at 30 fps. FCP digital camera moves are more detailed and faster. They are too good, too perfect, too detailed. I want to dumb them down to match the drawings I did.

At the end of the day, it seems like I will have to live with 30fps digital camera moves. Not the worst problem in the world. It’s just a detail that has been bothering me the entire life of the project.

3) Glad to hear that nesting is jsut slow in general and it’s not just me (though, once again not the most fun answer to have)

thanks for all the detailed help I got in this thread everyone!

[Dananderiq]

Zak

I am not looking to simply create two key frames with different center points becuase 2 things happen incorrectly when I do that.

1. I get image blending, especially on really fast moves.
2. My animation was drawn at 15fps. So every 2 frames, the image changes. If I were to use key frames, FCP would automatically interpolate at 30fps. I only want motion once every two frames to match the animation that was drawn at.

I could do the moves by hand, but clearly as you’ve pointed out that would be “infinitely more work”. So I’m looking for a feature that would break up a clip or at least allow me to interpolate my key frames, once every two frames instead of at every frame.

Also, to your comment about nesting the images in a sequence and bringing them into my timeline, that is a great strategy and I thank you for the tip. But I have a question about that too. My stills are 2538 by 2000, so I would want to nest them in a sequence at the same resolution. But a sequence that big runs extremetely slowly on my cpu. I was wondering if you could recommend a better work flow?

[Dananderiq]

I have all my files that were imported by Premier Pro 1.5 as AVI’s. When I import them into FCP 5, it warns me that I should re captrure the footage. But the footage plays fine and looks fine (in the canvas). Do I really need to re capture?

[Dananderiq]

Just to clarify. You don’t want an actual “Uncompressed” QT. You want a QT with the same compression rate that FCP uses to import footage. An uncompresed QT is about 2.5 gigs for every 5 minutes (Believe). You want something that is about 1 gig every 5 minutes. Right?

To do that, you go to file=>export =>”Quicktime Movie…” thats will give you a large QT file, equivalent to your FCP footage. Make sure you check the “make self-contained” box before you export.

good luck

[Dananderiq]

thanks Bruce. I’ve been searching for the ability to play back anamorphic in quicktime properly for a while. Very helpful.

I don’t have an anamorphic lense. My choice is shoot 4:3 and crop in post, or shoot squeeze mode anamorphic. Won’t even squeeze mode give me more resolution than 4:3?

[Dananderiq]

My client wants to screen the movie directing out of quicktime. He’s going to have his labtop plugged into a projector and screening straight out of that. He specifically does not want a DVD. So is there anyway to get my Anamorphic sequence out onto a QT file, without distorting it down? Which is essentially reducing the quality of the anamophic back to as if I would have shot 4:3, only I don’t get the vertical wiggle room to play with.

[Dananderiq]

But doesn’t QT not suport anamorphic? The client is projecting the QT file for the presentation so won’t I have to scale the squeezed anamorphic image back down to get it to play properly in QT?

[Dananderiq]

If I bring the stills into a standard video sequence, FCP automatically distorts the images 12.5% and places black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. This creates 2 problems.

1. I add editing about a thousand high res stills and adding an extra distort motion filter will slow my work flow do soooooo much.
2. I am repositioning each shot, one at a time to mathc the shot before. Mostly just chanign the center point of each shot. If I distort all the photos at the end after I’ve adjusted the shots, will the photo’s no longer be properly adjusted because the distort throws it off?
3. Even if I do distort the images, I eiher need to crop in an extra 6% of have black bars on the top an bottom. I was planning on matching the entire video as 4:3 and I was also planning on needing the extra 6% on the edge of each photos.

Is there a way to save this?

4. I know in theory I could batch distort all the photo’s in photoshop first so I don’t need to render them in FCP, but I’m not really sure how to actually do this. Could someone point me in the right direction. Can photoshop CS I do this alone or do I need a plugin?

Thanks

[Dananderiq]

thanks Tony, But it seems like FCP should allow you to change the title safe guides yourself withou shelling out 40 bucks. Is there a way? or do you just have to buckle down and buy the plugin?

[Dananderiq]

I am capturing with another camera through firewire. It’s a canon optura PI, 1 chip. Is it possible that the canon can’t read the timecode off the tapes from the hvx? What other kinds of setting could I be checking to display a time code?

There was a timecode displayed on the top left corner of the HVX screen when I was shooting.