Final Cut Pro® Portable Genius

Chapter 8. Can I Use Final Cut Pro to Produce Complex Motion Effects?

Final Cut Pro provides amazing functionality when it comes to working with basic motion. With so much power available, it's easy to get carried away and fall into complex traps that eat away at your valuable time. Building motion effects within Final Cut Pro should be a seamless process. In this chapter, I share some incredible tips and tricks that will save you countless hours when building your composites. It's important to optimize your workflow and increase your efficiency so the software doesn't interfere with your creativity.

• Working with the Motion Tab

• Adding Motion with Keyframes

• Copying and Pasting Motion Attributes

• Working with Multiple Video Layers

• Simulating the Ken Burns Effect

Working with the Motion Tab

The Motion tab provides core functionality in terms of moving video elements around within the video frame. At first glance, the interface may seem similar to other programs such as Adobe After Effects. The default location of the Motion tab is within the Viewer window.

The Motion tab provides the critical functions in the following list. In the next sections, I provide extra detail for Drop Shadow and Opacity.

• Basic Motion

• Crop

• Distort

• Opacity

• Drop Shadow

• Motion Blur

Adding a drop shadow

Within the Motion tab, you can easily add a drop shadow to any graphic element that contains an alpha channel. You can also add ...