Karaoke titling

Bus No. 8

Bus No. 8

Well-known member
Yes, it's true - I'm making a karaoke video for a local video challenge. I'm trying to figure out how to make my lyrics at the bottom of the screen change color as the song progresses. I've experimented with text and an animated matte, but I haven't yet wrapped my brain around this one. Any ideas? I did a search on here before I posted this but didn't find what I needed.

Thanks,

Robert
 
Hmm- I would say do this (although it's a little complicated):

Put your text down at the bottom. Now duplicate your text layer by hitting option+shift and dragging the copy of the original text layer to directly above it. Change the color of the original text layer (on the bottom) to yellow.

Now here is the difficult part. You want to "wipe away" the top layer as the lyrics go from left to right. You can do this a number of ways but the best is probably to keyframe it using the "crop" option in the Motion tab.

Can you figure this part out or should I detail it? It can be long to explain in writing but you can do it in about 2 seconds in real life.

Ted
 
Hmm thinking about this and knowing what FCP does to text. I would do my text layers in PS. Whats with FCP? Is it because the text is only 72ppi?
 
I came back to this thread because I'm doing text in FCP pro (not the karaoke. something else) and no matter what I do, it looks like crap. And what's with this "wait until you export it" business? (I'm referring to other "WTF" FCP text threads here). I'm annoyed.
 
Whatever I output in motion looks great. Bat after being placed on the FCP timeline turs to chum.
 
I just re-did all of my titles in Photoshop and they look much, much better - though one or two look not so great. could be because I re-sized them larger.
 
If creating all those keyframes gets to be too much, there is a Karaoke kluge in LiveType, the titling application that ships with every copy of FCP. This method doesn't change the color of the letters; it changes the highlight of the letters in the word you want emphasized. You can make that highlight any color you want.
Take a look under Effects->Glows-> Experience, Glisetne02, Golden Light Reveal, Light Glow, Growing Glow, Light Reveal and Reflection. They all work.
 
Crap! I didn't even think to look there (I almost never use Live Type - but of course that's where it would be). Well, the video is already turned in with just the words appearing as the song progresses, but the showcase night isn't until next Monday, so I may see about finessing it and turning in a revised version. Thanks for the tip. I'll post the video after the showcase on the 14th.

Robert
 
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Robert-

As for the titles looking like crap in FCP- yes, while working within the app they do look like crap.

HOWEVER- seriously, when you export to DVD or tape and play back on a tv, they look great. If you use a monitor while editing, you can also see they look great.

If you are exporting to web, well, they don't look the best but that is because computers do not display in NTSC very well. The best export I have used for web is using the H.264 codec and they end up looking nice.

But looking at your project in FCP or QuickTime is never going to show the text off well.
 
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