If you’ve ever tried following
a moving subject with a drone,
or even just a camera,
you know how hard it can be
to keep your subject in the middle of the frame.
On top of that,
if you want to zoom in on your subject,
it becomes exponentially harder.
Lucky for us,
this can easily be done in post production,
using the FCPX Auto-Zoom 2.1 plugin,
from the sponsor of this video,
Pixel Film Studios.
Hey guy’s, whats up.
My name is Serge,
and welcome back to my channel.
Today, we’ll be taking a look
at the newly updated, FCPX Auto-Zoom 2.1 plugin,
from Pixel Film Studios.
This plugin includes professional zooming tools,
combined with auto tracking,
and allows you to smoothly zoom in on the action in your shot,
smooth out your drone follow shots,
even stabilize and track handheld clips.
Let’s jump into Final Cut Pro
and see what we can do with this plugin.
We’ll start off with a simple example
of a drone following a driving car.
The shot itself isn’t bad,
but if we place a rectangle over the subject,
you can see just how much
the camera moves around in the shot.
Let’s apply the FCPX Auto-Zoom plugin
and see if we can fix it.
Now, there’s two ways to apply this plugin.
You can either apply it as an effect
directly to your clip,
or as an adjustment layer.
Let’s do an adjustment layer first.
From the titles and generators browser,
select the Zoom In adjustment layer,
and press Q to connect it to your timeline.
Ripple trim it to the length of your clip.
Next, with the adjustment layer clip selected,
move your playhead to the start of the clip,
head up to the video inspector,
and select the titles inspector.
First thing we need to do is track our clip.
Click the Track Editor button to open the tracking window,
position the tracking square over your subject,
and adjust it’s shape.
Bring the track quality slider all the way up
for best tracking results,
and hit the Track Forward button.
The Auto-Tracker 2.0 tracks every frame of your clip,
and creates keyframes for your subjects position.
After the track is complete,
click the Export Data button
to export these keyframes to your timeline.
Next, back up in the inspector,
scroll down to Zoom Controls,
select the On/Off checkbox,
and set your Zoom amount.
If you use the slider,
it maxes out at 32,
but you can go much higher
by either clicking and dragging up the number beside it,
or by manually entering the value.
Lets zoom in by 100.
By default, your tracked subject is centred in the frame.
Since ours started out closer to the bottom,
our frame was moved up
until our subject was in the middle.
To fill the frame where our clip cuts off,
FCPX Auto-Zoom creates a mirror effect of our clip.
This works in certain clips,
but most of the time, just looks weird.
There’s a couple ways to fix this.
If you have the extra resolution,
you can just zoom in more on your clip,
until the mirrored part is out of the frame.
If you don’t have extra resolution,
or don’t want to change the zoom amount,
you can offset the position of your subject.
In Zoom Controls section,
adjust the X and the Y offset sliders,
until the mirrored part of your clip
is out of the frame.
This moves your subject,
but still keeps it in the same spot
throughout your entire clip,
for a perfect follow shot.
And last, you can make the camera zoom
appear more realistic,
by adding some motion blur,
simulating camera auto focus,
or even adding a bit of camera shake
to your clip during the zoom.
You can also change the duration
and the smoothness of your zoom
in the Custom Speed Controls section
of the inspector, to ease in and out.
Our finished result is a perfect zoom in
drone follow shot.
Nice and simple.
Let’s try another clip,
and this time a little bit harder.
Ever watch a hockey or a football game,
and the camera zoom in on
and follows a specific player,
while keeping them perfectly centred in the frame?
These kinds of shots take a lot of practice,
and are extremely hard to execute.
FCPX Auto-Zoom makes this much easier.
Let’s focus on player number 16 in our next clip.
First, skim your clip,
and make sure the player doesn’t
get too close to the edge, or leave the frame.
Next, move your playhead to the start of your clip,
and apply the FCPX Auto-Zoom plugin.
Let’s use the Effect this time,
and apply it directly to our clip.
Select the clip,
and head up to the inspector.
First thing we need to do is track our player.
Open the track editor,
and select a part of your player
thats visible at all times, such as his helmet.
Set the track quality slider to one hundred percent,
and hit the track forward button.
Sometimes, when the tracked part of your subject
becomes obstructed,
or something very similar moves in too close,
the Auto-Tracker may lose your subject.
This is easily fixed.
As soon as you loose track,
hit the stop button to stop tracking.
Zoom in on your timeline,
and use the back arrow key
to go back to the last frame
where the tracker is in the right position.
Add keyframes to Offset X and Y.
Next, hold down the shift key,
and drag out a box around all the keyframes after that.
Delete these keyframes by right clicking,
and selecting Remove Key Frames.
Move ahead one frame at a time,
and reposition the box over your subject.
Keep doing this until all the obstructions clear up.
Hit the track forward button again
and let Auto-Tracker finish tracking your subject.
Depending on your clip,
you may have to do this more than once.
Once your track is finished,
hit the Export Data button
to apply all the tracking keyframes to your clip.
Next, in the inspector,
enable zoom controls,
and set the amount of zoom.
Add some motion blur
and other camera effects for a more realistic zoom.
Let your clip render out,
and you’re done.
You’ve just created a perfect
camera zoom and track shot
of your selected player,
something that’s nearly impossible to do
with just your camera when filming.
The FCPX Auto-Zoom 2.1 plugin
can be a very handy tool
to have in your toolbox for polishing your shots.
We’ve barely scratched the surface
of what you can do with it in this video.
If you want to try this plugin,
When checking out,
make sure to use the coupon code
SergePixel for 30% OFF your purchase.
If you enjoyed this video,
let me know by hitting the like button
and subscribing to my channel.
And once again,
a big thank you to Pixel Film Studios
for making this plugin,
and sponsoring this video.
Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you guys back here next week.