Hey guy, what’s up.
My name is Serge, and today,
I’m going to show you how two make this cool
clone trail effect for your next TikTok, Instagram Reel,
or wherever you share your content.
Before we get started,
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Make Better Videos.
A couple things to keep in mind before you start.
One, is you don’t want any camera movement at all when filming,
so use a tripod.
And two, even though we’re making this effect for mobile platforms,
so we need vertical video,
film this in the conventional 16 by 9 format
at the highest resolution your camera can film.
This way, we can fake camera movement in post,
and make it look like a we’re using complex camera tracking.
With that out of the way,
let’s jump into Final Cut Pro and get started.
Make a new project,
and set the video resolution to be the same as your clip.
In my case it’s 4K.
Add this clip to your timeline.
If I skim through my demo clip, as you can see,
it has a tiny bit of camera movement.
Even this small amount of movement will mess this effect up,
so first we need to stabilize it.
Near the bottom of the video inspector,
select the stabilization checkbox,
and once your clip is analyzed, select tripod mode.
This takes all the camera movement out of our clip.
Skim through your timeline,
and add a marker on the frames you want to freeze.
Now, to cut out our subject,
we could use the draw mask tool,
but a much easier way of doing this
is by using a photo editing app.
I personally use Pixelmator Pro,
but this can also be done in photoshop.
Pixelmator is just cheaper.
Place your playhead on your first marker,
hit the share button, and export this frame as a still image.
Let’s call this image 1 so it’s easier to keep track.
Repeat this on every marker.
With our images exported, let’s cut out our subject in each frame.
Select image 1, right click on it, and Open in Pixelmator.
To cut out our subject here and remove our background,
all you have to do is click the Remove background button
in the top right corner.
With our background gone, hit the share button,
and to keep the alpha channel in this image,
export it as a PNG file.
Do this to your remaining images you exported from Final Cut Pro.
Once done, import your PNG images back into Final Cut Pro.
Grab your first image,
and with your playhead at the start of your clip,
press Q to connect it above your timeline.
Ripple trim the end of this clip to your first marker.
Select image 2, add it to your timeline,
and ripple trim the end to the second marker.
Repeat this with your remaining images.
Here’s what we have so far.
Now, to share this clip on a mobile platform,
we need to convert it to vertical.
Press Command A to select all your clips,
and combine them into a compound clip with Option G.
Go to your media browser, select your project,
right lick on it, and select Duplicate Project As…
In the popup window,
change the video format to Vertical,
select your resolution,
and make to to check the Smart Conform checkbox.
This reframes your clip to fill out the full video frame,
and Final Cut Pro tries to frame it to focus on the action.
As you can see, in this case, we need to fine tune it a bit.
With your clip selected,
open the transform tool,
and click this little window button in the top right corner
to show your entire image.
Move your playhead to where your subject
and the still image are lined up,
reframe your clip,
and add a keyframe to the transform parameters.
Move to the end of your next still image,
and reframe your clip again to center your subject.
Do this to all your still frames.
Before closing your transform tool,
in the viewer window,
right click on each control point,
and change the movement type from Smooth to Linear.
Click Done to close your transform tool,
add some background music,
and share this clip to your favourite social platform.