need help in setting up title page for short

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David_M_Payne

Well-known member
I need to set up a title page for a short I'm doing using FCP studio, called "Osama blows his top!" I need to find a way to fill up a 16X9 video display with a title page and I can't find a way to do it, though there must be a way in FCP. We will be using one of my Apple power book G-4's to supply the page for the TV and it has FCP studio already loaded into it. In this sequence we are going to be having an interview session when it is interrupted by a live feed on the Internet. We need to have the TV show a full page of text that says:

The al Jihad terrorist network, the only fair and balanced news network in the Middle East brings you Osama bin Laden, live!

We will zoom in on this until it fills the whole frame of the camera (an HVX200 in 720p) and then cut to the video. Now I have to believe that there is a way to do a title page for the short and the movie that we are pulling it from for that matter in FCP but I can't find it. I also have word for apple but I can't find a way to get it to do a full screen text page either.

Help anyone?

David
 
I don't follow what you want to do. Just do a full size 16:9 page of text in your Sequence? Just drop a text generator slug into your Sequence and type away. Do you need it to size up properly in the frame area of the final project? Size, Distort, keyframe it all in the final Sequence as you need it. Unless I'm missing something here.

If you want to shoot an actual TV screen, I'd shoot a blank screen and fit the "title page" to it in the final Sequence as you need it.
 
BenB said:
I don't follow what you want to do. Just do a full size 16:9 page of text in your Sequence? Just drop a text generator slug into your Sequence and type away. Do you need it to size up properly in the frame area of the final project? Size, Distort, keyframe it all in the final Sequence as you need it. Unless I'm missing something here.

If you want to shoot an actual TV screen, I'd shoot a blank screen and fit the "title page" to it in the final Sequence as you need it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Ben, and I doubt you are missing anything, my post is just not clear enough I'm guessing. The first problem for me is that I'm not the most computer literate guy around being 58 and all, so I struggle to do some things with computers that people like you find elementary. I have some help with some of my more computer literate friends who are working on the film with me, but they are learning FCP on the fly, as they are more familiar with PC programs.
I do want to put up the text on the TV monitor, which is between the two characters in the interview sequence, zoom in on it and then cut to the video of Osama doing his rant. I know this isn't the best way to do this and there will be some flickering of the title page on the TV, but this is for you tube as a bit of a promotion for the film "Holy War", not the finished movie, so I can live with that. I wish I knew what a text generator slug is and where it is, but I don't. I'm on the apple site and the info I have so far says FCP has titling capabilities but it doesn’t give me any directions as to how to get to that part of the program. Can you give me some very basic directions to do that? Thanks.

David
 
Ok, got it. First of all, I'd consider just making a clip of the text in your project, and superimposing it over your original footage, on top of where the TV is. If there's lots of movement, it gets to be a lot of work matching up the keyframes and such.

Otherwise, to shoot it live with the HVX, or DVX, you can use SyncroScan to adjust the camera to get rid of the TV screen's flicker. Although I used it to get rid of the flicker on an FS-100's LCD screen and never could get it to make any difference at all. But on a real TV CRT it works great.

Here's what you do, make your clip something like 15 minutes long, something way longer than your shot really needs. Export as a QT movie, take it into iDVD or DVD Studio Pro, and burn it as a self playing, looping DVD.

OR, you can save it out to Mini-DV tape on an HVX or DVX, hook those component cables to your TV and show it directly from the camera, or tape deck.

As for where the text generator is in FCP, well, not to be mean or anything, someone really needs to get the FCP book, the Apple Pro Training Series book, really, it's super basic. That said, here's where you find it.

Wave an Oak branch, which is still green, yet stripped of leaves, in a counter-clockwise motion over the computer, while you chant your own name backwards. JUST KIDDING! It's the pain meds I'm on this weekend...

Go to the Effects tab in the Browser, then to Generators, then to Text, in there are several text generators. Double click the one you want, probably the plain text one simply called "Text". That opens it in the Viewer. Then drop that into your Sequence in the Timeline window ASAP! Important to remember, what you just dropped into the Timeline is not the same as what is still sitting in the Viewer, it's a new copy. So double click that one to open it in the Viewer, edit.

OR, in the Viewer window, while in the Video tab, at the bottom right is a button with what looks like a frame of Film with the letter A on it. Click that to reveal all your Generators, just like in the Browser.

Hint, the FIRST thing you do with a Text Generator is to click on the Color button in the Contorls tab in the Viewer. Go to the Crayon box and select the shade of white directly above the pure white it defaults to. That color is called Mercury, and will not give you the glare and problems pure white will.
 
BenB said:
Ok, got it. First of all, I'd consider just making a clip of the text in your project, and superimposing it over your original footage, on top of where the TV is. If there's lots of movement, it gets to be a lot of work matching up the keyframes and such.

Otherwise, to shoot it live with the HVX, or DVX, you can use SyncroScan to adjust the camera to get rid of the TV screen's flicker. Although I used it to get rid of the flicker on an FS-100's LCD screen and never could get it to make any difference at all. But on a real TV CRT it works great.

Here's what you do, make your clip something like 15 minutes long, something way longer than your shot really needs. Export as a QT movie, take it into iDVD or DVD Studio Pro, and burn it as a self playing, looping DVD.

OR, you can save it out to Mini-DV tape on an HVX or DVX, hook those component cables to your TV and show it directly from the camera, or tape deck.

As for where the text generator is in FCP, well, not to be mean or anything, someone really needs to get the FCP book, the Apple Pro Training Series book, really, it's super basic. That said, here's where you find it.

Wave an Oak branch, which is still green, yet stripped of leaves, in a counter-clockwise motion over the computer, while you chant your own name backwards. JUST KIDDING! It's the pain meds I'm on this weekend...

Go to the Effects tab in the Browser, then to Generators, then to Text, in there are several text generators. Double click the one you want, probably the plain text one simply called "Text". That opens it in the Viewer. Then drop that into your Sequence in the Timeline window ASAP! Important to remember, what you just dropped into the Timeline is not the same as what is still sitting in the Viewer, it's a new copy. So double click that one to open it in the Viewer, edit.

OR, in the Viewer window, while in the Video tab, at the bottom right is a button with what looks like a frame of Film with the letter A on it. Click that to reveal all your Generators, just like in the Browser.

Hint, the FIRST thing you do with a Text Generator is to click on the Color button in the Contorls tab in the Viewer. Go to the Crayon box and select the shade of white directly above the pure white it defaults to. That color is called Mercury, and will not give you the glare and problems pure white will.
Click to expand...

Well I'm fuc*ed, I live in Reno and there are no oak trees here!

Oh wait there is more, thanks for the info Ben and this old Vietnam Vet will do his best to follow your instructions, or have his friends do it as this is their part of the film project. BTW you ought to try the sleep meds the VA has me on for insomnia thanks to PTSD, even though they deny I got PTSD in Vietnam. The VA loves the three D's when it comes to helping us vets with PTSD. (Deny, delay and wait until you die!) Hopefully I'll get the film done before I get to the last D. ;-)

Edit to add, I couldn't find a tab for Generators in the effects tab on the tool bar at the top of the page, but I did find the link in the video tab so we will play with it and see how that goes. Thanks Ben!

David
 
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If you haven't filmed the interview scene (with the TV in the middle), then you could
also create a simple video with all the text you need and play it on the TV "on location".

You'll have to cue it up just the way you want it and you will have some issues with filming the actual TV, but you'll get the most authentic result and won't need to do anything in post other than the transition to the actual Osama clip.

If you have to do it in post you might have issues matching the text to the movement of the TV; so it fits well inside and all. You can keyframe the position and scale of the text frame in FCP, or use the tracking/match moving options found in After Effects, Shake, etc.
 
Cools said:
If you haven't filmed the interview scene (with the TV in the middle), then you could
also create a simple video with all the text you need and play it on the TV "on location".
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I said. As for tracking in an FCP timeline, it's not that difficult to do manually. I've done it a lot. Very easy. There's also one or two nice plug-ins for FCP to do tracking. Unless it was a really complex movement, something more than just a zoom, you can do it in FCP really easy and quick.

As for being in your 58, I'm 47 this year and computers are a snap. But then, I did IT professionally for more years than I care to think about. I am noticing now that I don't have to deal with all that IT garbage for ten hours a day professionally, I am slipping...
 
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