I have never used Adobe Illustrator before but for my latest video I have received the company logo as an AI file. The logo consists of two words in Century Gothic which I want to break up and slow reverse explode onto the screen at the end of the 90 second promo.

My idea had been to save each letter as a png and keyframe them in FCP using a semi opaque jpeg as a guide which I could delete when all the letters were in place. For some reason, AI files saved as PNG's are 'Unrecognizable File Type' when put into FCP and the only way to use them is to convert them again in Photoshop.

This is probably a job for motion, but again I'm at a loss as to where to start and i'll have to submerge myself in video tutorials at some point but for now I just need to figure out how to animate this logo, even if I do go about it the long way round.

Hey Cameron,

I used to live in Bangkok back in 1973. Wow, that's a long time ago!

This is a project for After Effects really.

If you're wanting to do this in FCP, then try saving each letter out as a Photoshop file. FCP should recognize that just fine.

I've not used PNG files in FCP and do all my animations in After Effects. However, I do know that FCP will recognize Photoshop files and will recognize transparency from them as well.

Good luck.

Final Cut Pro should recognize photoshop files - I am able to import them and turn on/turn off individual layers within the files.

If you nest the sequence you should be able to apply effects no problem. Let me know how that works for you.

Thankyou both, I decided to leave it until the rest of the project is complete so i'll be tackling this in the coming days.

'Nesting' the items, I think I know what you mean by that - merging layers? I'll look for tutorials on YouTube. Thanks again both of you.

P.S. James, I'd love to have been in Bangkok in 1973 - but I was being conceived around that time!

No, sorry, I meant when you import the photoshop file, it acts as its own "sequence" (forget the name in Final Cut since Ive been using premiere for the last 6 months - I just cant think of it for the life of me right now!).

You can just drop that right on your timeline and add whatever effects you would like to it - like if you want to blur it in, etc etc.