Pan/Zoom Question

[guest-age.livejournal.com]

I've been making vids for about two years now. I learned on Windows Movie Maker, then switched to iMovie when I got a Mac, and a few months ago I finally upgraded to Final Cut Express. My problem is that while I've been able to achieve most of the things I've wanted through some combination of the above, I haven't been able to pan or zoom yet. After Googling, I've found that it is apparently impossible to do those things in Final Cut Express without shelling out $99 for a plugin. I can't afford that, so I'm looking for alternatives. Are there any programs out there for Mac OSX (Leopard) that allow panning and zooming (hopefully cheap ones)? And if there aren't, are there any methods to get around this limitation without buying the plugin? Thanks.

Edit: Solved, thanks to barkley!

Comments

[barkley.livejournal.com]

You don't need a plugin to do that. You can do it with keyframing.

Here is a v. long explanation of it:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_fcx_keyframing.html


Short zooming method using keyframes:
Under menu option VIEW, make sure image plus wireframes is checked.

On timeline, click on clip to highlight it. Wireframes (crosshairs) should show up in the canvas.

Place playhead at beginning of clip.

On the bottom of the canvas, hover over the buttons. The one that looks like a little diamond should say "add keyframe." Click that. Your crosshairs should turn green.

Move playhead to end of clip. And either click and drag the crosshairs out to zoom the picture, or just increase the scale in the motion tab on the clip viewer. Then click on keyframe button again. And it should turn green again.

Render. You have now zoomed.


If you want to pan. Start at the begining of the clip. Drag the crosshairs out to zoom in (or us the scale.) Do this because you need "extra" video in order to pan.

Then drag the crosshairs to one side. Click the keyframe button.

move the playhead to the end of the clip. Drag the crosshairs to the other side. Click the keyframe button.

Render. You have now panned.

[guest-age.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much. I'll try this. Hopefully it will work. Thanks! :)

[barkley.livejournal.com]

I haven't worked with iMovie since iMovie3 was new, and I never used any zoom and pan effects with it. However, I did have a few plugins back in the day from Gee three and virtix, and I just went to their websites and it seems they do have pan and zoom plugins. I can't recommend them since I've never used them, but I have used other plugins by these companies. (free sample ones.)

http://www.geethree.com/slick/index.html

http://www.virtix.com/imovie/index.asp

Depending on your operating system and iMovie version, the Geethree one seems likes it's the most up to date (compatible with Leopard and an intel processor if you have that.)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

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