[Enzo Tedeschi]

Make a pre-comp for the loop, and dupe and stagger the layers so that they are end to end. Ctrl-D will dupe the layer, there is also a shortcut wich escapes me at the moment which will jump the new layer to the last frame of the old, making it a speedy process. If it’s a longer loop, start duping multiple layers at a time (Select multiple layers and then Ctrl-D). Make this comp longer than what you need, and then drop this into your animation. You will be able to control it as a single layer, extending or shortening to suit. There may be a way to do this with expressions, also, but that’s not really my thing. This would just be my approach.

Time-remapping is the way to go for speedups and slowdowns, but you need to enable it from your menu. Select the layer and in the layer menu select “Enable tim-remapping”. Now you will have keyframable time controls in your timeline. There will be a keyframe at either end of your layer, and you can drag them closer to speed up, or further away to slow down. Play with it to get a feel.

Hope this helps.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

More info – ‘film look’ is a term used ny many, not necessarily to indicate literally making something look more like film.

You can go to http://www.nattress.com and check out the FCP G Film plugins – they were the best money I ever spent on plugins.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

Make sure your firewire device is powered on before you start FCP. If it still doesn’t see it, try the Refresh AV Devices command. Pretty sure it’s in the same menu. Then ensure that External Video is set to All Frames. That should take care of it.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

Don’t forget once in photoshop to apply the Video > Deinterlace Filter. It will sharpen the image a touch by making it a progressive frame, and will also get rid of any ugly “banding” due to the interlacing…

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

…and if you don’t like fiddling around inside system folders, try FCP Rescue:

https://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14729

Free little app that will do the prefs trashing thing for you – and back them up at the same time.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

Everyone was an amateur at some point, so don’t sweat it. :o)

Digital camera stills will be in square pixels out of the camera. If you don’t convert them (say, in Photoshop), you will get a little bit of stretching when you bring it in to FCP.

As for fuzziness, make sure that your image is at least the same res as video (720×480 for NTSC, 720×576 for PAL), or higher will let you zoom in etc.

I’m not suer if FCE has realtime timelines, but in FCP, you will often get fuzzy stills if you don’t render – it’s a realtime issue. Try ans render first and see if that helps. If the still is a very high resolution, you may also get some flickering on your image on a video monitor. If FCE has a flicker filter included, you will likely want to use that.

The other possibility is that when viewing on a computer monitor, video can look a little fuzzy due to the quicktime settings. This can sometimes be rectified by switching on Hi-Quality mode in QT.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

What codec was used to make the AVI?

Try using mpegstreamclip from Squared 5 (free download)… if it is in a codec the mac still can’t read, you may need to use a PC to convert it to something that can be read by the Mac.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

Rock and roll, Mat.

Thanks!

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

The Pro bundle has “The Wiggler” – perfect for what you’re asking. I’ve used it to shake up CG explosion shots, and also to fake handheld camera shake.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia

[Enzo Tedeschi]

Thanks, Mat.

That’s the one in my link above – can’t buy from the Lacie store, as it won’t ship to Oz.

Are they shipping yet? Everywhere online is listing them as pre-orders only.

Enzo Tedeschi
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Editor
Sydney, Australia