Q: Can't get smooth pan/zooms using keyframes

Thanks Tom & Alchroma. The free FxFactory plug-in that I installed in FCPX can do one-motion pan/zooms nicely, although you can't just drop it onto a clip and go to work on it. Instead, it starts out by asking for a still shot, and requires you to navigate out onto your hard drive and find the picture that you want it to work on. That's annoying.

Once you give it the picture, it creates a clip with it (although the clip just has a repeating flower on it instead of the picture, so you can't tell what's in the clip until you run the playhead or skimmer over it--another annoyance).

But the main problem with this plug-in, and with FCPX's Ken Burns crop effect as well for that matter, is that they can only do a single move on a picture. So I'll just have to modify my storyline to do single-move pan/zooms, separating each one with something else, such as a different picture or video clip.

In other words, what I'd really like to do is zoom in on the face of the man on the far left, in the front row, hold on his face long enough to identify him, then pan all the way across the front row to the man on the far right, linger on his face long enough to identify him, and then pan upward to the third man.

But I can't do that, being limited to single moves. Instead I'll have to do something such as zoom in on the first man, identify him as the pilot of the airplane, then dissolve into a photo of him in the cockpit, or a clip of him speaking, or something. Then I'll have to start all over again with the wide-angle group shot, zoom in on the man at lower right, identify him as the navigator, and dissolve from his face into a shot of him working with his navigation tools, or speaking, and so forth for the third man.

I can't just pan around on the picture while narrating like I wanted to.

But I guess that's how I'll have to do it until I can find a multi-move pan/zoom plugin for FCPX, if such exists.

Tom B.

Al, that sounds like a plan. I'll give it a shot tomorrow and report back. Thanks very much..

Tom

Shucks, Al, I can't get it to work. FCPX refuses to reverse a Ken Burns clip---the Reverse option in the Retime menu is grayed out when the clip with the Ken Burns effect in it is selected.

The Reverse option only becomes available if I select a clip that has "real" video in it.

FCPX evidently considers a clip with Ken Burns motion in it to be a still picture, not video, despite the motion.

Tom

That's it, Al! That's the solution! The method you laid out is the answer to the whole puzzle! (I mean, I was puzzled; obviously you weren't).

I didn't notice the reverse button up there in the upper left corner of the FCP Ken Burns crop window until you pointed it out, but that (reversing clips) is the solution to the whole problem of creating continuous, multiple-move Ken Burns effects within FCPX, by the method you described. No third-party plugins required!

By doing what you said: creating a Ken Burns clip in FCPX, duplicating it, reversing the copy, and butting the two together in the Timeline so that the starts and ends match, then repeating the process over and over with each new clip in turn, an unbroken series of pan/zooms can be created and kept up for as long as you want.

Each time that you duplicate and reverse a clip, you change the destination of its pan/zoom to the next place on the picture that you want to land on.

Also, holds or pauses between each pan/zoom can be made by putting freeze frames (a freeze of the image at the stop/start points) in between the Ken Burns motion clips, and the length of these holds can be adjusted by simply lengthening or shortening the clips containing the freeze frames.

In the same way, as you pointed out, the speed and timing of the Ken Burns pans and zooms can be adjusted in the Timeline by just lengthening or shortening the clips that contain them.

This evening, by using this method, I was able in just a few minutes to create the series of pan/zooms that I wanted on the men in this picture, moving from one man's face to the next, pausing at each one to do the voice-over narration. I have freeze frames at the beginning of the sequence, at the end, and in between each of the pan/zooms.

I was able to make all the motion match the narration perfectly with a final tweaking of the timing of all the moves and holds, just by slightly lengthening or shortening the clips that contain them. The whole sequence of movements came out looking smooth and polished. Neat!

I have a lot of photos to put into this project, so I will be using this method continually throughout this documentary!

Many thanks!

Tom B.

I love FCPX's KB now too!

And by the way, just for anyone reading this in the future, when I was positioning the start or end frames of each Ken Burns move, I was often frustrated by the way the frames jump around magnetically at times while I was trying to drag them into position, refusing to stay exactly where I wanted them, and making precise positioning impossible. It seems to have something to do with automatic alignment of the frames with each other, or something---a centerline would appear and they kept wanting to snap into some sort of alignment with it, away from where I wanted them to be. Whatever they were trying to do, this jiggling and jumping around of the frames was driving me nuts.

Then I discovered, by lucky chance, that if you hold down the Command key while you drag the frames around, this irritating snapping or magnetism is turned off, all the jiggling and jumping stops, and then you can do very precise placement of the frames.

Thanks once more, Alchroma!