Adding text to a film

[Oliver Darden]

I just finished a documentary film and now I want to add text including: opening text statements, a few simple lower thirds and end credits (not scrolling and no animation). I would like to do this in the most professional, cleanest looking way possible and I was wondering what you guys suggest. AE? Photoshop and then just drop them into the FCP sequence? Or should I just do them in FCP? I have a particular font I want to use and I want to add a slight blur to soften the look so it's not so sharp.

Any help is appreciated!

[John DuMontelle]

Well...I do a lot of graphics when I edit my video on FCP7.

As long as there's no animation or crawl, you could create the graphics you want in Photoshop as .png files then drop them into your FCP project.

I'm not sure I understand your need to "soften" the text but...to be clear, if you have a particular font style you want used and it's already in your computer, it should be selectable as one of the fonts in FCP without having to go through all the .png stuff.

The other option is to do a little of both.

Make your lower third backgrounds in Photoshop...or whatever program like it you use...but leave off the text. Again, make the files .png so the background is transparent around your art...and have some fun bringing in the text over the lower third background with FCP.

I'm a "keep it simple" guy, when possible. I've used AE to create graphics, then exported to FCP but...it seemed like I had to jump through more hoops to get what I wanted using that method instead of "keeping it simple".

Not sure if this helps you.

[Oliver Darden]

Thanks John, very helpful indeed.

Do I need to worry about dpi on the png files?

Also, when I say soft I just mean to lower the sharpness of the text so that it's not so "HD". I'm a big fan of old Les Blank documentaries, and although I will never be able to achieve the look of that era of doc film making, I feel like softening up the text by adding a very minimal Gaussian blur helps me get closer to the look I want.

Thanks again.

[John DuMontelle]

If I'm producing a graphic outside of FCP7...I make the file size as big as possible.

It's always easier to go smaller than bigger and keep HD sharpness.

Then, if softness is desired, use the Gaussian blur.

Graphics are always a matter of personal taste.

You know what your visual goal is.

Work to give yourself options once you get it into FCP7 rather than trying to figure it all out before you ingest.