Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns may be best associated with the photographic pan and zoom effect that now bears his name, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for further improvement. Noise Industries recently updated their own free Pan and Zoom Plugin for FxFactory to support Final Cut Pro X.
While Apple includes a faithful interpretation of the popular “Ken Burns effect” to add pan and zoom motion to still photos when using Final Cut Pro X, the feature is a bit limited when it comes to holding an image on screen at the beginning or end, and certainly doesn’t offer the effect as a transition between two video clips.
That’s where Noise Industries comes to the rescue. The company’s popular FxFactory software is like an app store where developers can sell plugins for popular video applications like Final Cut Pro, Motion and After Effects, and this month Noise updated their free Pan and Zoom Plugin to support the latest edition of Apple’s video editing software.
Here’s a quick look at how to get started using it!
To use the free Pan and Zoom Plugin, you’ll need host software -- we’re going to show you how to use it with Final Cut Pro X, but the FxFactory plugin also works with Final Cut Pro 6 or 7 as well as Final Cut Express 4, Motion 3, 4 or 5 and Adobe After Effects CS4 or later (including the latest CS6 version).
You’ll need to download FxFactory 3.0.3 (or later) from the Noise Industries website. You’ll need a Mac with ATI, NVIDIA or Intel HD graphics, and at least 512MB of VRAM is highly recommended. (That’s pretty much every Mac sold in the last few years.) FxFactory will work with Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 or higher, including OS X Lion 10.7 and up.
Double-click the FxFactory installer and when finished, head back to the Noise website and download the free Pan and Zoom Plugin.
Double-click the file and the plug-in will be installed into FxFactory. Once this is done, quit FxFactory, as the rest will be done in Final Cut Pro X.
Once FxFactory and the Pan and Zoom Plugin are installed, it’s time to launch Final Cut Pro X. (If it was already open during that installation, you’ll need to quit and relaunch for the new plugin to show up.) The latest version is 10.0.4, which is recommended. We’ll start with the more straightforward aspect of the Pan and Zoom Plugin, the transition.
Click on the Transitions icon at bottom left; a list of all available transitions will appear on the left. Select “Pan and Zoom,” which currently has only one option available.
With at least two video clips on your timeline, click and hold on the Pan and Zoom transition, then drag and drop it on the edit point. Select the new transition and scroll to the beginning.
In the Viewer window, you’ll now see two gray boxes: One for Position 1 (starting frame) and one for Position 2 (ending frame). The entire frame will also be framed in blue, but if you play or scroll through the transition, you’ll see this change as the effect unfolds.
At the bottom of the Viewer is a Setup button, which is currently blue. This determines whether you are previewing the effect settings or when unchecked (not blue), the actual effect itself. There are also two pulldown menus for region selection and motion blur, which are duplicated in the Transition inspector at right (more on those in a moment).
Select the outgoing section of your frame by grabbing the dot inside the Position 1 box and moving it wherever you’d like. Using the Transition inspector at right, you can change the size and angle of the position box as well. The important thing to remember is that Position 1 is your outgoing transition -- you’ll be going from a full frame to zooming into whatever part of the frame you choose here.
Likewise, Position 2 determines what the viewer will see incoming from the next clip, but in reverse: The selection will zoom out to fill the frame instead. Generally you’ll want to choose two different objects that you want the viewer to focus on as the shot zooms in during the transition and then zooms out as it completes with the next shot.
With both selections made, click the Setup button, scroll a bit earlier in your timeline and tap the Space bar to preview the transition. Playback may not be smooth until Final Cut Pro X has finished rendering in the background.
Also, FCPX defaults to a short transition, so you may want to increase the length by dragging an edge left or right (or select the transition, then double-click on the time counter above to enter an exact length; don’t forget to press Return or Enter to accept the change).
Now that you’ve learned the basics of the Pan and Zoom Plugin, let’s move on to animating still photos. With Final Cut Pro X still open, choose the Generators icon and find “Pan and Zoom” in the list at left. There are four total options here in two different categories.
“Pan and Zoom (Auto)” includes two generators -- one that will adjust automatically depending on the duration of the clip, and another that will animate based on a preset time of your choosing. The others, “Pan and Zoom (Keyframed),” allow for more precise and complicated animation that goes beyond simply start and end positions.
Click and drag an automatic Clip Duration generator into your timeline.
You’ll want to choose the length of the clip, either by extending the clip or selecting it, double-clicking on the time counter above and keying in a new duration. We’ll choose four seconds, which can be entered by pressing 4, 0, 0 and then Return.
Next, select the generator in your timeline and click “Choose Image File” from the Viewer window.
This will bring up a standard Mac OS X file browser, allowing you to select most any common image file from your hard drive, including JPEG, PNG, PSD or RAW. Likewise, you can select images from an iPhoto or Aperture library.
Now you’ll see the full image in the Viewer with the familiar grey boxes for start and end position. Use the dot in the center of each frame to position them where you’d like -- the Pan and Zoom Plugin will do the rest. To preview your effect in the timeline, deselect Setup and hit Play. (You’ll probably want to let FCPX finish rendering the generator before playback.)
While those are the basics of the free Pan and Zoom Plugin, there’s plenty more available that makes it a superior tool to Final Cut Pro X’s built-in Ken Burns Effect.
If you want to make a frame larger or smaller, use the Position 1 or 2 Scale slider in the Generator inspector. Here you can also type exact X or Y coordinates for each frame, or even rotate them at an angle.
Where the Pan and Zoom Plugin really shines is with the ability to choose where in your clip the motion starts. This is done with the “Start At” and “End At” sliders in the Generator inspector. For example, a 20 percent Start At will remain static on the first 20 percent of your clip, then begin the pan or zoom effect. Likewise, an End At setting of 80 percent will complete the effect early, allowing the final position to remain in one place for dramatic effect or even to fade or dissolve into the next clip.
The Pan and Zoom Plugin also allows you to extend the effect beyond the edges of a still photo, while selecting a background color of your choice.
Motion Blur can be added to any Pan and Zoom Plugin transition or generator for a more realistic animation. The pulldown appears in the Viewer below the effect preview while in Setup mode, or at any time from the Generator or Transition inspector. Select from Low, Medium or High settings, but keep in mind that motion blur will add significantly to your render time.
Finally, the Pan and Zoom Plugin transition allows for Region Selection. While the previous walk-through used the default “Different region for each clip” setting, users can also choose “Same region in both clips,” which offers the ability to keep the pan and zoom action in the same frame while setting two different points for positioning -- ideal when your in and out clip subjects are in the same area of the screen.
Now that you’ve got the basic idea of how the Pan and Zoom Plugin works, feel free to try it out with the other included generators -- and be sure to check out all of the paid options available in FxFactory which can really spice up your video projects. Thankfully, almost all of them now work with Final Cut Pro X as well as other hosts.
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