Create a Motion Template for Final Cut Pro

There are a lot of very interesting effects built-into Apple Final Cut Pro, but, sometimes, creating a custom effect can save a lot of time – especially if you need to use it over and over. Or, you need “just that certain look” for your project.

So, here’s an example of how to create a template in Motion, using a variety of useful Motion effects, that you can use directly in Apple Final Cut Pro.

NOTE: I included a sample video and Motion project at the end.

Here’s where we are going: When the effect starts, the background blurs, an image slides in, then text slides in which identifies the slide. At the end, we could either dissolve out or animate everything sliding out. The animation process is the same. I’ll just show how to create the beginning.

This effect could be used for sports still frames/statistics, a still image treatment in a documentary, or just a way to draw attention to an image. The inserted content is up to you and can vary with each use.

WORKFLOW

When creating full-screen templates in Motion, you have five options:

• Motion Project. Use this when creating visual effects for other NLEs, like Premiere.
• Final Cut Effect. Use this when creating a visual look to apply to a clip. When saved, this will appear in the Effects browser in the category into which you saved it.
• Final Cut Generator (top red arrow). Use this when creating a stand-alone visual effect that acts like a clip; full-screen, fully-opaque, fully-animated. When saved, this will appear in the Generator browser in the category into which you saved it.
• Final Cut Transition. Use this when creating a transition between two clips. When saved, this will appear in the Transitions browser in the category into which you saved it.
• Final Cut Title (lower red arrow). Use this when you want to see the clip in the Final Cut Pro timeline underneath the effect you create in Motion. Although this is called a “Title,” you don’t actually need to use or include text. When saved, this will appear in the Titles browser in the category into which you saved it.

Of these five, the two I find most useful are Titles and Generators.

As well, there are two ways to animate something:

• Behaviors. Use these when you need movement with limited control. They are fast and easy to apply and adjust.
• Keyframes. Use these when you need precisely controlled movement. They are persnickety to apply and adjust.

We’ll create this effect in four steps:

1. Create a Motion project and blur the background
2. Add and animate the image
3. Add and animate the text
4. Add and animate swooshy lines

CREATE A MOTION PROJECT

To start, the Project Browser appears (screen shot above). We need to tell Motion what we want to create. Because I want this to float over the existing FCP timeline clip, I’m going to create a title.

The Preset menu determines the frame size for the project. Motion ALWAYS creates the highest quality, regardless of Preset setting.

For this tutorial, to make it easier to create screen shots, I’m creating a 1280 x 720 project at 30 fps.

After a second or two, the Motion interface opens. Smile…. don’t panic! It looks worse than it is. Well… mostly.

NOTE: You will see that I never did save this project during this tutorial. Um, until the end. Sigh… not a good idea. However, this isn’t a normal “Save.” When you want to save this, see the “Export” section at the end of this tutorial.

MODIFY THE BACKGROUND IMAGE

First, let’s make this interface less stressful. The timeline at the bottom is called the “Timing Pane.” It is very useful when working with keyframes, but not now. You can hide this by pressing the F6 key, if you’ve enabled F-keys, or click these two blue icons (red arrows) in the top right corner of the Timing pane.

This list to the left of the Viewer is called the “Project Pane.” We will use this a lot. Just as with Photoshop, we are working with individual elements stored on layers which can be renamed, reorganized and grouped. Grouping allows us to apply the same effect to multiple layers inside the group.

Right-click in the gray area below the list and create and rename two new groups (or type: Shift + Cmd + N): “Text” and “Image”. Then, to keep things organized rename the bottom group: “Background.”

NOTE: To rename a group, double-click the name.

Finally, delete the “Type Text Here” layer. Your Project pane should now look like this.

The layer “Title Background” is special and only exists in this template. It automatically inserts whatever image(s) are under this effect in the FCP timeline. Which means that whatever we do to this layer in Motion, will automatically apply to those clips in FCP.

So, let’s blur it.

Select the Title Background layer

Choose Filters > Blue > Gaussian Blur to apply it to the selected layer.

Instantly, the Inspector displays settings for Gaussian Blur. Drag the Amount slider to 30. This blurs the background image a lot. (You can pick any value, I’m using something really obvious.)

You can apply all sorts of effects to this background layer: Level changes, posterization, blurs, whatever.

CRITICAL NOTE: For any effects applied to this Title Background layer to appear in Final Cut, you must check this box to enable it (red arrow). It is off by default.

ADD AND ANIMATE A SLIDING IMAGE

To help us stay oriented, type apostrophe (‘) or choose View > Overlays > Safe Zones. This displays blue rectangles for Action Safe and Title Safe. I try to keep all essential images and text inside Action Safe (the outer rectangle).

Select the Image group in the Project Pane.

Choose Object > New Drop Zone (shortcut: Shift + Cmd + D).

Press the Shift key and drag one of the corner blue dots to resize this placeholder smaller and roughly in the middle of the frame. (The actual size and position is up to you.)

NOTE: Pressing Shift constrains dragging to match the aspect ratio of the source image. Pressing Option + Shift drags symmetrically while retaining the aspect ratio.

Because we want this image to stand out from the background, we’ll add a drop shadow to it. Highlight Drop Zone in the Project Pane (right red arrow), then, in Inspector > Properties, enable Drop Shadow and change the settings to match mine here.

Finally, we’ll animate this by adding a Motion Path behavior. A Motion Path is animation with a definite starting and ending location.

With Drop Zone still selected, choose Behaviors  > Basic Motion > Motion Path. This adds a Motion Path behavior to the drop zone..

With the words Motion Path highlighted in the Project Pane, match these settings in Inspector > Behavior panel. The KEY setting is to set Direction to Reverse. This starts the image out of frame and slides it in from the starting point of the Motion Path.

Next, with the playhead at the start of the timeline, drag the red dot in the center of the drop zone so the drop zone itself is just off screen to the right.

NOTE: If you can’t see the start of the Motion path, change the display scale of the Viewer by clicking this menu and selecting a smaller size. I often find myself working at 50% size.

(Here’s a cool secret about behaviors: their duration determines their speed!) Move the playhead 20 frames in from the start and set an Out (type: O). The behavior instantly trims to 20 frames, meaning the image will take 20 frames to fly in.

Press the space bar and test this for yourself. And, because we applied Ease In to the speed, it starts quickly and slows at the end.

NOTE: Once you set the timing of a behavior – or any effect – you can drag that small timeline icon elsewhere in the mini timeline to change its start time.

We could stop here, and add any text we need in Final Cut. But, let’s take this one step further by adding formatted and animated text. If you decide to stop, go to the Export section at the end to save your work safely.

ADD AND ANIMATE TEXT

Move the playhead back to the beginning of the timeline.

In the Project Pane, select the Text group.

In the menu at the bottom, select the Text tool. Click anywhere in the Viewer and type “Describe image.” Since we will change this text in Final Cut, we don’t need to worry about what it SAYS, only about how it looks, where it is placed and how it is animated.

NOTE: It is possible add a control that allows us to change the size of the type in Final Cut. To do so, look up Publish in the Motion Help files.

Go to Inspector > Text and change the font as you wish. I’m using Harrington because I like its old-fashioned feeling.

Click the Text > Appearance tab, scroll down and change the face color to yellow, then, further down, enable a drop shadow. My settings are show here.

In the toolbar, select the Arrow tool (shortcut: A), then position the text where you want it to appear in the frame.

To animate the text, we’ll use another Motion path. (We could use keyframes, but a Motion path is faster to create and easier to modify.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: When adding effects, always move the playhead to the start of the timeline. Effects are always added at the position of the playhead.

Select the Describe Image layer, choose Behaviors > Basic Motion > Motion path. As before, in the Inspector, set Direction to Reverse, set Speed to Ease In.

Then, drag the starting position dot (on the right side) to where you want the movement to start. For me, I want the text to fly in from the left, while the image flies in from the right. Adjust this starting dot so the edge of the text is somewhat outside the left edge of the frame to allow for different lengths of text in FCP.

Finally, set the duration of this effect. Move the playhead to 15 frames and set an In (type I), then move the playhead to 1:00 and set an Out (type O). What you just did is tell the behavior to start at 15 frames (after the image starts moving) and end at 1:00.

NOTE: You can tweak all this timing by changing the In and Out of either behavior.

You can stop here and congratulate yourself. If so, go to the Export section at the bottom. Otherwise, I have one more thing to show you.

ANIMATE A GROUP

Let’s add some racing stripes. To do this, right-click in the gray area below the Project Pane and add a new group. By default it appears at the top of the Project panel. Rename the group “Stripes.”

Click the chevron next to the Rectangle tool in the toolbar at the bottom and select Line.

This time, move the playhead to the middle of the timeline, so you see both the text and image.

Draw a horizontal line over the text. Don’t panic! Yes, it’s fat and blue.

With that newly-drawn Line still selected in the Project Pane, go to Inspector > Shape > Outline and change your settings to match mine in the screen shot above.

Whew…! The line looks MUCH better.

With Line still selected in the Project Pane, go to Inspector > Properties and adjust Position so the line is over the text.

Like this.

Right-click the Line in the Project Pane and duplicate it.

Select the copy and, using the Inspector > Properties, change Position > Y to move this new line below the text.

BUT! Because our playhead was in the middle of the timeline, both lines start at the wrong time. Move the playhead to the beginning of the timeline, select each line and type “I” to set an In.

Now, for the cool part of using a group.

Select the Stripes group. Go to Inspector > Properties > Drop Shadow and enable it. You’ve now added drop shadows to both lines.

With the Stripes group selected, move the Playhead to 10 frames and apply a Motion Path to the group. Yup, animation can be applied to groups as well as individual elements.

Move the playhead to 22 frames (or so) and set an Out.

NOTE: As before, with the Motion Path selected, go to Inspector > Behaviors and change Direction to Reverse and Speed to Constant or Ease In.

Ease In slows animation speed coming into a control point.
Ease Out slows animation speed leaving a control point.
Constant leaves animation speed constant throughout.

This time, it looks like the motion path is not connected to the group. That’s because the path is moving the entire frame, not just a single element. Grab the starting point on the right and move it to the opposite side. You’ll need to tweak the position to get the best results.

Here’s how my animation for these two lines looks. Note that the starting point is actually inside the frame. That’s OK.

EXPORT THE FINISHED PROJECT

By default, any text added in Motion can be changed in Final Cut. As well, any drop zone shows up as a drop zone in Final Cut. So, you don’t need to do anything special to customize this effect.

To save this template, choose File > Save.

In this window, give the effect a name. I created a category where I store all my custom titles. Whether you save a preview movie is up to you.

Then, click Publish.

USING IN FINAL CUT

Open a project in Final Cut.

Go to the Titles browser. You’ll find your effect in the category into which you saved it.

Like any title place it on TOP of any existing clip, or clips.

Select the title effect, then drag a Browser clip – moving or still – into the drop zone in the Inspector that you want to slide in with the effect.

In the FCP timeline, move the playhead so you can see the text in this effect, then change “Describe image” into something more appropriate appropriate.

Play the effect.

Yay you!  Done.

EXTRA CREDIT

Click this link to download my Motion Project (1.2 MB). Then, either store the entire “Graphic Slide-in” folder in [Home Directory] > Movies > Motion Templates or open the folder and double-click Graphic Slide-in.moti.  (You’ll need Motion to open this project, you won’t need Motion to access this file in Final Cut Pro.)

Here’s a video of my finished effect. I made one change to this project, I delayed all movement by 10 frames to allow room for a dissolve into the effect inside Final Cut Pro at the beginning.

NOTE: If you have problems applying a dissolve – as I did – create a compound clip of the effect and background clip, then dissolve into that compound clip.

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