In today’s video,
we’ll take a look at how you can censor specific parts
of your clips in Final Cut Pro.
This can be used to hide someone’s identity,
censor sensitive information, such as license plates on cars,
or even censor adult content,
to make your videos more family friendly.
Hey guys, what’s up.
My name is Serge, and welcome back to my channel.
If you need to hide, or censor a specific part of your video,
Final Cut Pro has a built in censor effect.
To apply it to your video clip, open the effects browser,
and at the bottom, in the search bar, type in censor.
Drag and drop this effect over a clip in your timeline.
Use the on screen controls to reposition and resize
this effect over the sensitive part of your clip.
The problem with this method,
is it only works if the part you’re trying to censor doesn’t move.
The sensor effect stays in the same place throughout your clip,
so if your subject moves, it’s kinda pointless.
You could manually keyframe the position of this effect,
but if there’s a lot of movement in your clip,
this could take a long time.
There is a better and easier way of censoring moving subjects in video,
and that’s by using the FCPX ProAnonymous plugin
from the sponsor of this video, Pixel Film Studios.
The FCPX ProAnonymous plugin can be purchased on its own,
or you can get it as a part of the FCPX Editing Suite Mega Pack.
For only 129 USD, you get 13 very useful plugins,
including a Stabilizer plugin, an Effects Tracker, Distortion Tracker,
ProCinemagraph and more.
Purchased individually, these plugins would cost almost 400 dollars,
so this is a great value.
And, if you’re new to Final Cut Pro, or just want to brush up on your skills,
Pixel Film Studios has put together a free tutorial playlist,
with over 150 videos focusing on some basic
and more advanced features in Final Cut Pro.
This is a great free resource for Final Cut Pro users.
Now, let’s jump bak into Final Cut Pro
and take a look at how you can track and censor moving subjects
using the FCPX ProAnonymous plugin.
After downloading and installing this plugin,
open the effects browser,
and select the Pixel Film Studios ProAnonymous category.
Inside here, you’ll find four different censoring effects.
Select the type of censor effect you want to use in your video,
and drag and drop this effect over your clip.
Since we’re censoring a moving subject,
first thing we need to do is track our clip.
Skim over your clip, and select a reference area you want to track.
For best tracking results, this area should be fairly small,
remain in focus and unobstructed throughout your entire clip,
and have a fair amount of contract.
For this demo, let’s use the models nose.
Place your playhead on a frame where this area is clearly visible,
select the clip, and head up to the video inspector.
Make sure the video resolution here matches your clip,
and click the track editor button.
In the popup window,
move the tracking square over the area you want to track,
and adjust the size of it.
To be more precise, you can zoom in on your clip
by using the size slider,
and reposition what you see in the frame by selecting this hand button,
and dragging your clip in the viewer window.
Next, let’s adjust a few parameters on the right hand side
for the best possible track.
First up is the track quality slider.
Personally, I always set to to 100 percent,
to get the best result,
but if the area you’re trying to track is simple and has good contrast,
you can set this lower to speed up tracking.
Next, for tracking type, you can select what you want to track.
For our demo, all we need to track is the position,
so let’s select position only.
Under this, we have the track assist filter to help with the tracking.
Turn this on, and bring up the amount slider to increase contrast in your clip.
Once all your settings are dialled in,
click the camera reset button to see your entire clip,
and in the top right corner, click the track forward button.
The plugin will track the movement in our clip
and add a position keyframe on every frame.
Once our track is finished, move the playhead back to the first keyframe,
and track backwards from there.
With our entire clip tracked, in the bottom right corner,
click the Export Data button
to add all these keyframes to the clip in your timeline.
Depending on the length of your clip,
this might take a bit of time.
Our next step is to select the area we need to censor.
First, in the inspector,
since we only tracked the position data in our clip,
de-select the rotation and scale check boxes.
Move over to the viewer window,
and use the pen tool to add a mask around the area you want to censor.
Back in the inspector, scroll down to the Anonymous Controls,
and turn on the censor effect.
Adjust the pixel size and blur amount,
and if you want any of the parameters under it.
Once done, let your clip render out,
and here’s our final effect.
Much easier than key framing, especially for longer clips.
If you purchase this plugin as a part of the FCPX Editing Suite Mega Pack,
the same tracking tool is also used for other plugins.
You can use it to stabilize your clips,
fix skin blemishes, attach objects to walls,
and many other cool effects.
I’ll link a few more tutorial videos in the description.
If this is something you’re interested in, during checkout,
use the coupon code SERGEPIXEL for 30 percent off
the ProAnonymous plugin or the entire mega pack.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you back here next week.