How to adjust Ken Burns Effect

Hi guys,

I'm trying to put together a photo slideshow with FCPX and, for some of the photos, I'd like to zoom in on a specific position in the image, with the zooming speed starting very slowly, then accelerating as it gets closer to the ending point, and once it reaches the ending point, I'd like the frame to freeze for a second.

I've tried the Ken Burns effect, but found the following three issues:

1. Its zooming speed is too constant. Is there a way to adjust the speed so that the zoom starts very slowly, then gets quicker and quicker as it gets close to the ending point?
2. For a square-size photo, I can't define the entire photo as the starting area. No matter how I adjust the borders of the green rectangle, it only covers half of the photo max. Is there a way to adjust this?
3. How can I freeze the frame at the end of the zoom?

I saw some of the earlier posts mentioning keyframing. But as a newbie, I didn't quite understand how that works. If keyframing is the solution, I would be most grateful if someone could advise how in details. Thank you guys!!

Totoro

Hi Totoro

A sample ... I will use scale only.



1 .. Set the cursor on the photo at the point you wish to start the 'ken burns' effect. Usually the beginning.
2 .. In the Inspector pane on the right there is a 'block' called 'transform'
3 .. In the transform block there is a function called 'scale'
4 .. Set the scale to 300% (just for testing purposes)
5 .. Now .. just to the right of scale a little plus sign will be visible if you place your mouse there. Click it, and it will turn Orange.
6 .. VERY IMPORTANT. now drag the cursor to the end of the frame or where you want the 'ken burns' effect to end.
7 .. set the scale back to 100%

Now when you play the frame it will zoom from 300 out to 100.

You can do this with the x,y axis, the rotation and the scale in the transform block. You can use all three at once. Just click each little plus sign PRIOR to moving the cursor. (This is key framing)

Step 6 is the step that is overlooked and where others come to grief.

cool bananas ... Greg

For this purpose I find that instead of keyframing scale it is much easier and precise if you keyframe "crop".
The Ken Burns effect is in the "crop" section, which also contains "trim" and "crop". This last one lets you do everything you want.

Hi Lichinho,

I'm brand new to FCPX. I've found that the Ken Burns is a bit limited, but I could easily be wrong. It lags at the start and the end. That is, at the start and the end there are a few frames that are not effected by it and, if your shifting to an audio beat, you can pick this slight delay. It's annoying but does not occur in key-framing.

Also its more difficult to control the line of travel .. for me, anyway.

If you know different please let me know.

Greg

The way I see it, the Ken Burns effect is easy to use, but not very much customizable.
If you want more control than that, it is not the best choice.
Ken Burns is fine if you just want to set the start and end and don't think about it. That is equivalent to setting one keyframe for crop on the first frame, and another at the last frame. Once you realize that, you also realize that you can set as many keyframes as you want, change from smooth to linear or vice versa, and have a lot more control.