I'm sure someone can help me with this one quickly. How do I incorporate digital still photographs into my video project and create movement with the stills/photos?

At first, I thought I would just videotape photos but the gentleman that owns the stills said he has them in digital stills. I know how to get them into to FCP but how am I going to create movement with them after I import them into my editing software?

If I were shooting them, I would just set my lighting and framing and zoom in and out or pan diagonally to create the movement I want. I don't want stationary shots of stills or pictures. I need movement. Some have referred to this as the "Ken Burns effect."

Thanks for your assistance.

Chuck

This probably should be moved to a FCP thread. In most NLE there are methods called panning and zooming, to accomplish your goal. In Premiere Pro 2.0 it is available in the Effects menu for the clip under movement. I've also done extensive pans and zooms on cheaper NLE like Pinnacle Studio (7-10) with great results. Thats the PC side.

Super easy to do. Don't import the photos into final cut because it will just create a log jam as FCP tries to deal with 3+mp stills. Import the photos into iphoto and then select them. From the file menu select new slideshow. Now click on Ken Burns effect and use the settings tab to adjust as you will. When you've got it looking snappy choose export from the share menu. Here's the tricky part, since the file is mp4 you need to convert it to quicktime in mpeg streamclip re-rendering it in FCP will take forever. Now you have a nice quicktime movie in an FCP native format. This will cut your time down by about 5000% and save you the trouble of having to manually keyframe each movement.

I have a follow-up question to this. I was able to make my still images move, zoom, pan and tilt successfully but there are images, especially those with high contrast, that look watery in certain areas. I think this might have to do with the video interlace. When I de-interlaced it, the image became blurry and didn't really eliminate the watery look.

What would you guys suggest I do to make this problem go away?

Thank you in advance for your advice!

Chuck,
I use Photo to Movie to create the Ken Burn effects to Final Cut Pro. It's so eay to use try it here's the link:

http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php

Carol,
That tip sure is a time saver!!! Thanks a million.

Carol...

Regarding that "watery" look, that's something that seems unavoidable in FCP. It doesn't render such things smoothly.

To solve that problem I use a program called "Automatic Duck" to export the program as an XML file into After Effects. And AE does all the rendering for all the digital video effects such as pans, pushes and pulls.

Not a cheap solution but it works very well.

Thanks to everyone for your input! I'm just getting back into the swing of things.

One other follow up question: How do you deal with size issues? If you're trying to fill the screen with the image but the size of the image does not fill the screen. I'm using the 16:9 format exclusively. Any way to get around this? Any software you recommend? Many of my stills will have to be enlarged.

Thanks.

Chuck

Bringing a post back from the dead!

Can anyone recommend any other good Burns Effect type plugins for FCP? Free is great ;)

I was using VASST Ultimate S in Vegas, which had a phenomenal plugin for the effect.

This probably should be moved to a FCP thread.Forgive my newbness, but I thought this was the FCP forum.

great info btw. I have used Pinnacle Studio extensively for this effect, but I'm new to the Mac, I'll give iPhoto a shot.

Kevin...

The reason for the lack of a plugin is probably because it's easy enough to do that in FCP without it.

Check out Shane Ross's tutorial (the URL is listed above) and give it a try. After a bit of practice you'll find it quite simple and, probably, more controlable.

I'm able to do a quick layout of stills for wedding "slide shows" and other similar jobs fairly fast. Perhaps an hour of effort to lay out a 4-minute song with 50 to 60 pictures.

I'm sure it's easy enough, I am just used to the VASST plugin, which takes all of about 5 seconds to do 30 or 40 photos!

Carol...

Regarding that "watery" look, that's something that seems unavoidable in FCP. It doesn't render such things smoothly.

To solve that problem I use a program called "Automatic Duck" to export the program as an XML file into After Effects. And AE does all the rendering for all the digital video effects such as pans, pushes and pulls.

Not a cheap solution but it works very well.

I guess you would have to own AE to achieve this...bit expensive at the moment :(

Thanks to everyone for your input! I'm just getting back into the swing of things.

One other follow up question: How do you deal with size issues? If you're trying to fill the screen with the image but the size of the image does not fill the screen. I'm using the 16:9 format exclusively. Any way to get around this? Any software you recommend? Many of my stills will have to be enlarged.

Thanks.

Chuck


I guess if you want to keep the photographs in their native context then you would have to use black bars either side of the screen. Depends on whose photographs you are using...I can guarantee 'editing' somebody's photographs wouldn't go down to well with the photographer (if for example you were doing a documentary on their work). Pretty sure most stills are large enough (pixel wise) to zoom in a little without compromising on quality.

Super easy to do. Don't import the photos into final cut because it will just create a log jam as FCP tries to deal with 3+mp stills. Import the photos into iphoto and then select them. From the file menu select new slideshow. Now click on Ken Burns effect and use the settings tab to adjust as you will. When you've got it looking snappy choose export from the share menu. Here's the tricky part, since the file is mp4 you need to convert it to quicktime in mpeg streamclip re-rendering it in FCP will take forever. Now you have a nice quicktime movie in an FCP native format. This will cut your time down by about 5000% and save you the trouble of having to manually keyframe each movement.

That's an idea I'd never thought of Jason...any hit on quality using this method?

I can't believe no one has suggested opening Motion......this is the type of thing Motion is great at.

Cheers,
Scott