Making a Timelapse in FCP

S

starvingstudent

Member
Im sure there might be topics on this, but I'm shooting as I write this, no time to search, and I'd have some peace of mind if I knew I was coming home to some great answers tonight.:D

I'm shooting stills with an intervalometer and my Canon 7D.
I don't have quicktime pro.

Can I arrange those stills into a timelapse with FCP?
Could someone please explain it for me in layman's terms?

Would be greatly appreciated!
 
Quicktime Pro certainly makes it easier but you can do it using just FCP as well. Noah K might be able to give you better advice but here's one way to do it.

Follow these steps:
* Be sure that your photos are in order (named correctly so they sort in the order you want them to appear - eg. 1, 2, 3, 4).
* Within FCP, change the Still/Freeze Duration setting to 00:00:00:01. Go to User Preferences, click the Editing tab, type "1" into the Still/Freeze Duration, click OK.
* Import your photo folder.
* Select all photos you want within your timelapse.
* Drag them all into your timeline.
* Each photo should take up exactly 1 frame and they should be in the right order within your timeline. That should do it.
 
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if they're named in order by the camera (ie IMG0001, IMG0002, etc) then you can also open the pics in QT by going to "open image sequence" and then export it as a QT movie in whatever codec you've chosen for your FCP sequence. Then just modify playback speed in FCP.

I've also done TL's in after effects by "sequence layers" and having each image fade into the next one.
 
Thank you so much for all the help! I tried it the way coddida suggested, and I love how it came out. I know QT will be preferable though, because it was kind of a pain having to render every time I wanted to preview the sequence and it'd be easier if I had the timelapses as separate clips.
 
David S. said:
Excellent point.

Final Cut Studio installs a pro apps license for QT Player to make it pro by default.

Has done that for years.
Click to expand...


I could definitely be wrong but I do not think QT X, which comes with newer OS X installs, has the image sequence built-in. I think you would actually have to downgrade to QT Pro 7.

Can anyone confirm that I am either right or wrong? And I would like to be wrong because I currently use my MBP (w/ QT Pro 7) to create image sequences instead of my MP (w/QT X).
 
QuickTime Pro is a part of FCS, always was. I am still running FCP6, but I can't imagine they changed this in FCS3.
 
starvingstudent said:
Thank you so much for all the help! I tried it the way coddida suggested, and I love how it came out.
Click to expand...

Glad it worked for ya!

starvingstudent said:
I know QT will be preferable though, because it was kind of a pain having to render every time I wanted to preview the sequence...
Click to expand...

QT would be preferable, no doubt. But...you have to render every time you want to preview? That doesn't seem right. Are you doing anything to the clips after you add them to the timeline?

starvingstudent said:
...it'd be easier if I had the timelapses as separate clips.
Click to expand...

You could nest those clips within its own sequence. Alternately, you could do a quick export of your timelapse and then re-import it as one clip if you are sure that it is as you want it.

But you should probably stop listening to me. I am self-taught and am probably passing along bad *cough* hacks.

Where is Noah when you need him?
 
btw you don't need to "downgrade" to QT7... you can have both installed on machines with snow leopard. it is on the 10.6 install disk as an optional install IIRC. QT7 gets put in the utilities folder.
 
Hmmm...interesting. When I tried to install QTP7, I got some kind of "QTX is already running on this machine" error message. I'll have to try it again. Hope you're right BBBMB.
 
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