Final Cut Pro & Motion
Mark Spencer is a freelance producer, editor, teacher and writer based in the Bay Area. His company Day Street Productions is a production and post studio focused on corporate video. He is an Apple-certified instructor for Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Motion, teaching for organizations such as BAVC, Stanford University, DVExpo, MacWorld, and consulting for corporations and individuals. He is the author of the Apple Pro Training Series book Motion Graphics and Visual Effects from Peachpit Press and has written for print and online publicat...
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How a Feature Film Editor uses Motion for VFX
By Mark Spencer | April 02, 2009
Billy Fox returns to MacBreak Studio, and I talk with him about how he used Motion to create a shot "out of nothing" for the feature film Traitor starring Don Cheadle. The movie is embedded on the next page - click the Play Video link below, please give the movie a moment to load.
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Billy Fox on MacBreak Studio
By Mark Spencer | March 10, 2009
Veteran Hollywood film editor Billy Fox shows us how he uses Motion to create a VFX shot for the international thriller Traitor.
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Quick Animated Glints
By Mark Spencer | March 03, 2009
A short video tutorial that shows a quick and dirty way to create nice animated "glints" for your text.
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Terrible Handwriting? Excellent!
By Mark Spencer | March 02, 2009
Type is a critical part of most motion graphics projects. To make your project look truly unique, consider creating your own font. I always shied away from this task as it seemed quite complicated, but there's a site that makes it unbelievably simple to make your own hand-drawn font - and it's completely free!
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Professionally designed templates for Final Cut Pro and Motion
By Mark Spencer | February 11, 2009
Students, customers, and colleagues have been asking me for years to design templates for Motion and Final Cut Pro. I always resisted, because I didn't want to do it unless I could do something that would really stand out. Over the past several months I have been working with Ripple Training and a professional design team to do just that.
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By Mark Spencer | December 03, 2008
I teach Motion to a lot of After Effects users. Sometimes they end up in my class because they want to be there; other times their organization has sent them and they arrive kicking and screaming, ready for a fight. Either way, after clearing away a lot of misconceptions and getting them to actually use Motion for 3 days, I find almost every After Effects user comes away with a new respect for - and frustration with - this wonderful yet sometimes annoying application.
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Scaling Keyframes to Retime Your Animation
By Mark Spencer | November 12, 2008
So you've created a great animation in Motion. You've tweaked every motion path, set each keyframe interpolation, and pulled and pushed on every bezier handle to get the timing and flow just right. Then your client tells you they love it but it needs to last 2 seconds longer. Before you pull your hair repositioning hundreds of keyframes by hand, check out this video for a quick tip on a handy keyframe editing tool that could save you load of time - and hair.
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It's time to get busy.
By Mark Spencer | November 04, 2008
So the bursting of the housing bubble that led to the credit freeze that led to the stock market sell-off that led to companies cutting back on spending that led to the recession has now trickled down to freelancers like us. Which means you may have noticed your invoices are getting paid later, your projects are being downsized or cancelled, and client requests for proposals for new work are slowing to a trickle.What a great opportunity. Economic downturns come and go - and when they come, it's a great time to finally take care of all those things you were putting off when you were busy making money. So, here are my three recommendations for how you can prepare for the next big upswing. When the phone starts ringing once again, you'll be ready.
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12 Tips for Improving Motion's Performance
By Mark Spencer | October 27, 2008
One of the most enjoyable features of Motion is its ability to play back even moderately complex projects in real time - allowing for a type of interactive development process where you can add and animate layers while the project plays back. In fact, the real-time playback feels so intuitive and natural after only a short time that it becomes quite addictive - to the point where it can be really annoying when the performance begins to slow down.
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If you are looking for Motion training, Apple's own website is a great resource
By Mark Spencer | October 20, 2008
Apple has recently revised the entire Final Cut Studio section of their website, adding a large amount of descriptions, images, and video training on Motion. You can see some short videos on key Motion features here.
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What's the best graphics card for Motion? Right now, the choice is clear.
By Mark Spencer | October 17, 2008
Motion is a GPU-based application, which means that the graphics card you choose makes all the difference in the world: the better the card, the better Motion's realtime performance. There are a myriad of cards on the market, but if you have a Mac Pro, your choice is a simple one: you want the Radeon HD 3870. It's quite simply the best card out there right now for Motion on a Mac Pro, it works on all Mac Pro models, and it's surprisingly inexpensive at about $200.
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Some Tips on Trying Motion for the First Time
By Mark Spencer | October 13, 2008
So you've been working with Final Cut Pro for awhile now. And recently you or your organization upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2. You've heard about all these great new features of Motion, and you've been meaning to check them out. Really. But you're always on a deadline, so you fall back on doing your graphics in Final Cut Pro or After Effects or something else you are already comfortable working with. Well, it's time to take a look and see what this Motion thing is all about. Here are a few tips on how to create something snazzy in Motion without even really knowing what you are doing.
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When Motion Forces a Group to Precompose
By Mark Spencer | October 06, 2008
When working with blend modes in Motion, it's important to understand how groups of layers interact with each other so that you get the result you are looking for.
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Copyright "Calculator" Tells You If You Can
By Mark Spencer | October 06, 2008
Copyright law is complicated, and it can be difficult to determine if a certain song, image, or video can be used without obtaining the copyright holder's permission. I've come across an interesting site that does a great job at simplifying the process of determining if a certain work is covered by copyright or not. Just drag the slider to the appropriate publication date (of course, you need to know this...) and it will tell you whether permission is required and what the copyright status is. Very slick. See it here.
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A Modest Proposal
By Mark Spencer | October 04, 2008
One of my local heroes, Stu Maschwitz, has posted a very intriguing article proposing that Adobe integrate After Effects with Premiere Pro. It's required reading, IMHO, for both Adobe and Apple. Especially Apple, from whom we have seen very little as Adobe has been actively pushing the bar forward in the post-production realm. Check it out here.
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Getting Rid of Those Dirty Edges
By Mark Spencer | September 30, 2008
When you blur elements in Motion, sometimes your edges can become "tainted" - here's how to fix them quickly and easily.
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A follow-up video with some more tips
By Mark Spencer | September 29, 2008
If you missed my original video tutorial that shows you how to take a multi-layered Photoshop file, quickly and easily spread the layers out in z-space in Motion, and then animate a camera through the layers, check it out here. I had a few follow-up questions from viewers, so this video provides a few more tips that I hope help everyone out.
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Using text animation to drive a message
By Mark Spencer | September 28, 2008
I saw this animation recently and I thought it was a great example of a powerful message created primarily with animated text. What do you think?
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What To Do If Motion Starts To Misbehave
By Mark Spencer | September 23, 2008
Has it happened to you? You are chugging along great, working on a cool project. Then one morning you fire up Motion, and something goes wrong.Perhaps it freezes or crashes; or your project presets are missing; or your filters or missing; or perhaps your entire Utility Pane (which contains the File Browser, Library, and Inspector) has just vanished and you can't seem to make it come back. Many folks never run into any of these issues, but if you do, over on applemotion.net I've compiled a list of common problems and solutions to help you get back up and running as quickly as possible.You can see them all here.
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Using Jacket Pictures in DVD Studio Pro 4
By steve martin | September 03, 2008
Jacket pictures are images your DVD player throws on the screen whenever you stop video playback. Jacket pictures are a way of branding your dvd with a company logo, graphic, or a picture of the dvd box itself (or jacket image).Keep in mind that some DVD player manufacturers support this feature and some do not. The ones that don't, generally use their own jacket picture when the DVD is stopped. My feeling is, why not create one anyway? The file takes up so little room on the disc, and the players that do support it will display your logo (or whatever) whenever playback is stopped.
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DBA Createasphere