Moves on still images: FCP or AE?
 

Hi guys,

I am finishing up a project that has a number of pans and zooms (the "Ken Burns" effect if you will) on high res still images. These are all 2-D moves, not 3-D moves. I have created all of these in FCP We are getting ready to finish the film for delivery to a very quality focused broadcaster, and so I'm wondering if I need to recreate all these moves in After Effects instead of in FCP for optimum quality. The project is currently 720p but will be uprezzed to 1080 for delivery, so one advantage of recreating in AE is that we could do all these stills moves at 1080 and then bring them back into project after the uprez. Any advice would be great.

Thanks!

Peter

FCP can handle moves quite nicely - and easily - however FCP has also been notoriously odd when any filters or effects are applied to stills later. If you're experienced with AE I'd make those sequences in AE and bring them in after the uprez; anything that FCP does with it's built in motion tool does not look good when res is pushed up.

FCP is pisspoor at making feathered pans and zooms. Zooms are OK, but add a move and you'll be looking for another application. There are some plugins which can improve the Ken Burns type effects.

But try Motion instead, it gives you much better bezier handling in the keyframe editor window, compared to AE's unintuitive beziers (although easyease isn't too bad sometimes)

Thanks Robert and Duncan! Will recreate the stills in AE then.

Peter

If I have to do that sort of work, I do it in FCP for timing and scale. Then use Automatic Duck to transfer the project to After Effects where it's rendered.

Sometimes a few adjustments have to be made in AE but keyframing movements in AE is a lot easier to do than in FCP.

Thanks Dean!