David A. Cox: Hello everyone, and welcome to chapter nine in my 12 part series
on video production for small business owners and nonprofits, this course aims
to teach small business owners, how to use their iPhone in order to create a
commercial, to support their business.
In the end chapters, I will teach you how to upload that commercial to
YouTube, pair it up with Google ads and make it so that when people watch
YouTube videos in your local community, they will see your commercial as the
ad that plays before other videos.
You are watching the free version of this class that I've made available on
YouTube, because I do believe in public education, if you would like to experience
the full course, you can sign up through Thinkific for a one-time payment of $99.
That will get you access to all the project files so that you can follow
along; plus demo footage, library, templates, PDF guides, my own package
of third-party effects, and a lot more.
To sign up, please visit the link you see on your screen, or you can find it down
below in the video description without any further ado,let's begin the class.
Hello everyone and welcome to chapter nine today
I'm going to teach you how to use a final cut pro template in order to
create a highly stylized video in no time flat . I'm going to start by
explaining what a template is and the different ways that you can use them.
Then I'm going to show you how to replace drop zones with your own content.
And finally, at the very end, I'm going to show you a quick montage
of some of my favorite templates.
My course is sponsored by our friends at MotionVFX.com maker of the world's best
effects and templates for final cut pro.
Links to everything we are about to go over you will find down
below in the video description and you can save 10% off anything you
buy with promo code TechTalk10.
A final cut pro template is a collection of different modules that come
together in order to create a theme.
These templates contain placeholders known as drop zones, where you can insert
your photos, videos, and text, making, assembling this type of video a snap.
Now, the most important thing that you need to know about templates
is that there are two different ways that you can work with them.
One option allows you to just drag and drop one file onto your
timeline, swap out all of those drop zones and you are good to go.
The other option is that you can access the different modules that make up that
template and put them in a custom order.
This is just my opinion, but I do not recommend that you
go with that second option.
And the reason why is because these modules are designed to
be delivered in a certain order.
What I'm really trying to say here is the point of working with a
template is to make your life easier.
Don't try to rearrange it.
Let's take a look at one of my favorite templates.
The name of this template is luminous displays.
What I love about this template is it's clean, elegant, and incredibly versatile.
If you work for a nonprofit, you could replace these drop zones with
images of your staff or the people who benefit from your services.
Right now, you're hearing this with a very dramatic track, but if we change
it to something a bit more delicate, it instantly changes the mood.
Later on in this tutorial, I'm going to show you how easy it is to slow
things down if this pace is too fast, another great way to personalize a
template is to add a voiceover track.
If you,own arestaurant, you could replace these drop zones with
short videos of the food you prepare, longtime customers, staff.
If your business has been in the family for generations, you could
use archive photos of your relatives.
That's what's great.
You can use still images or videos with this solution.
Before I teach you how to swap out drop zones.
There is a setting that I strongly recommend that you change anytime
you're working with a template.
And what this will do is it will dramatically improve playback performance.
If you're following along at home, let's go to the top menu bar and
click on where it says final cut pro.
Then let's go into preferences.
And now I'm going to click on the playback tab.
And what I recommend you do is change it so that the rendering
time is no less than 30 seconds.
The reason why is because anytime you make the slightest change to a
template, final cut pro is going to need to render the entire project.
So you're better off letting final cut pro take a break from doing that process
until you're done assembling things.
And then when it's done.
Let it have at it to access the main project file.
Go into the browser and click on the titles and generators tab.
Then go to the bottom and here in generators, click
on where it says motion VFX.
The technical name for this project is project number 1579, by my own admission
one of the very strange things about templates is that they are not named,
they're numbered.
So even though the name of the project is called luminous displays,
when you actually install it, it shows up as project number 1579.
And if you found that last part confusing.
Congratulations.
You were paying attention gold star.
So now all I need to do is drag and drop that file into my timeline.
Now I'll click on the file so that it's highlighted and here in the
inspector is every single setting and drop zone that appears in our template.
I'll start by swapping out the placeholder text with my text.
If you want to change the font or the color, all of
those options are right here.
If you need to make changes to things like text positioning, you can do that
by clicking into the X or Y axis and then drag up or down on your cursor.
If we scroll down a little bit further, you will see that we have our first
drop zone to swap out the shots.
Start by clicking in this area.
Then open up the browser and navigate to the photo or video that you want to use.
If you're selecting a photo, it's pretty straightforward.
Just click on it.
But if you want to use a clip from a video, you're going to need to specify
what portion of that clip you want to use.
And this is the one circumstance where switching the browser to
filmstrip mode can make it a lot easier to work with, to do that.
Click the icon here at the top to toggle back and forth
between filmstrip and list view.
While you're here.
You might also want to make adjustments to the amount of
time displayed in the browser.
So that way you can be a little bit more accurate when you're
pinpointing those moments.
Just to review.
The last thing I did was I clicked on the drop zone placeholder.
And so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to skim over a clip and find the
moment where I want it to reference.
Let's use this moment.
Now, all I need to do is click here in the browser and then click apply here
at the bottom right.And that's it.
So now all you have to do is just scroll down further in the inspector,
find the next drop zone, tell it where you want it to reference.
And after you repeat that, about 30 more times, you've got a video.
One thing I did want to make sure I mentioned about templates is
that you can slow them down or speed them up if you need to.
So let's say for example, you find the perfect piece of music,
but it's longer than the project.
No problem.
Just click and drag on the right-hand side to lengthen it.
And what that will do is slow down every animation inside of that project,
in order to make it fit that length.
At this point, I would like to show you a few of my other
favorite, final cut pro templates.
This template is called parallax slideshow.
It works best with footage that has a little bit of movement to it in order
to emphasize that parallax effect.
It's visually interesting without being too distracting.
this next template for some strange reason, reminds me of the
opening to Saturday night live it's called youth modular template.
As you can see here, we have an added effect where it's making all the footage
appear to have that textured look to it.
The running time for this template is 39 seconds, which makes
it perfect for a YouTube ad.
This next template can be described in two words: Apple commercial
This template is named rhythmic typography it runs 27 seconds long.
It is not subtle.
And you'll definitely want to pair this with the right high impact track.
If you own a restaurant, you're going to love this next one.
This template is called takeaway restaurant.
And as you can see right off the bat, we have a placeholder for your logo, as well
as plenty of text fields, where you can list whatever information you would like
to feature later on in this template.
There's a great placeholder for a quote.
So if a local restaurant critic has left you a good review, That
would be a perfect place to put it.
I think the music that you're hearing sounds a little bit like something out
of ocean's 11, but just like I showed you in the first example, the simple act of
changing the music can have a big impact.
Last but not least,
we have a template called new generation.
This can be a great solution if you're looking for a modern, fresh
look with a nice blend of typography, zoom, transitions, and movement.
I also love how elements of this template, blend, text,
and color distortion together.
Hey folks.
I am filming this segment after I have already filmed and edited
the class that you just watched.
And since then I spoke with one of the folks at motion VFX.
Hey Anna, thank you for answering my question.
And I asked her, why is it that when you buy a template and you bring it
into final cut pro, it always shows up as a project number as opposed to the
name that's normally associated with it.
And she gave me the reason I thought it was interesting.
And so I thought I would share it with all you.
You remember how earlier I told you that you can access the different
modules that make up each template?
Let me show you where that lives.
And then I'll explain why they're numbered to access the different modules,
go to the titles and generators tab.
And in the title section, look for motion VFX here, for example, are the different
modules that make up luminous panels.
It's numbered because if it were named the title would be too
long and it would get cut off.
So that's the reason why.
The more, you know, so I just wanted to say, if you do decide to buy a
template at some point, just make sure you write down and you see what the
project number is associated with.
It.
You'll see it show up in motion, VFX in the URL.
You'll also see it show up when you go to install it through M installer.
So just wanted to let you know where to go, to find that information.
I have posted links to all of the templates.
I just showed you down below in the notes section and chapter 10, we're going to
go over the basics of color correction, AKA not going to make your brain explode.
Thank you so much for watching everyone class dismissed.