Welcome to Final Cut Pro X in Under 5 Minutes.
I’m Steve from RippleTraining.com.
In this episode, I’m going to show you how
to to create a faux camera parallax effect
where a photo appears to have depth and change
perspective.
In this photograph of the girl on the beach,
the camera appears to move towards her as
the background focus changes. This effect
is often achieved with a compositing application
like Motion or After Effects that employ a
3D camera to move through the scene.
Since Final Cut Pro does not have a 3D camera,
you can still fake it and get cool looking
results.
Before you can animate the photo, you need
to separate the subject from the background.
Here I am in Pixelmator, and I’m using the
Paint Selection Tool to select the just the
girl. Once she is isolated, I’ll right-click
and choose Cut and Paste as Layer.
Toggling the layer visibility reveals that
the photo is now separated by subject and
background.
Next, you’ll want to select the background,
then fill in the hole left by the cutout.
Select the Clone tool, then start cloning
in neighboring pixels.
The reason this step is important, is that
when animating the layers in Final Cut Pro,
you want to give the impression that the background
is one seamless image behind the subject.
You won’t need to clone in the entire background,
just enough to hide the hole near the edges
of the subject.
When you’re finished, save the image as
a Photoshop document, then import it into
Final Cut Pro X. Double-click the clip to
reveal the layers in the timeline. To verify
that your layers have imported correctly,
select each layer then press V to disable
and re-enable them.
By default, the layer durations are too long.
I’ll move the playhead to 6 seconds by pressing
Control-P and entering 6 period return.
I’ll then Press Shift-Command-B to blade
both layers at the playhead location, delete
the clip excess, then press Shift-Z to fit
the layers to the window.
Let’s start by animating the girl. An often
used animation technique is to lock in your
ending keyframe first. With the girl layer
selected, I’ll press the End key, then the
left arrow key once to park the playhead on
the last frame. In the Inspector, I’ll add
a keyframe for Scale, then enter 120 for the
scale percentage.
I’ll move the playhead to the beginning
of the timeline by pressing the Home key,
then enter 100 for scale. Because a keyframe
was already set for the end frame, there is
no need to set a keyframe for the start frame.
Let’s play back.
Now I need to animate the background but I
don’t want to start from scratch. I want
to use the keyframes I already created for
the girl as a starting point. With the girl
layer selected, press Command-C to copy, then
select the background layer and press Command-Shift-V
to bring up the Paste Attributes window.
I’ll select Scale, then Paste.
I don’t want as much scaling on the background,
so I’ll select the background layer, then
in the Inspector use the next keyframe button
to park the playhead on the last keyframe.
I’ll enter 110 for the scale percentage
and play back.
As a finishing touch I want to add a slight
blur to the background to simulate a depth
of field change. With the background layer
selected, open the Effects browser, locate
the blur category, then add a Focus effect
to the layer.
With the playhead parked on the second keyframe,
I’ll use the Focus amount slider to create
the amount of blur I want. The amount of 30
is a bit heavy-handed, so I’ll reduce it
to 15 and set a keyframe.
I also want to change the focus center-point
so that the white wash of the surf is more
in focus because it’s closer to the subject.
I’ll drag the Y hot scrubber until the focus
is centered where I want it.
I’ll set a keyframe for the Center parameter,
then press Home, and set the both the focus
amount and center point to zero.
At any point you want to adjust the timing
of the animation, select the layer and press
Control-V to reveal the animation editor.
Drag the keyframes to a new location to make
the blur effect and/or scale happen earlier.
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