Titles & Other F/X

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A Great Title Background Effect
Creating A Moving Line On A Map
Creating Interesting Title F/X
Extending An Empty Scene Beyond 10 Sec’s
Interval (Time-Lapse) Recording
Putting a border around a picture
To Convert Source Material To Black & White
Using F/X Between 'Inserted' Video Scenes
Using Rab-Byte Animations
"Floating" Picture-In-Picture Effect

Putting a border around a picture
The easiest way is to us the rectangle feature and create a vertical rectangle and place it on the left side, make a scene and do the same for the right side. Pretty time consuming if you are doing any large amount of Pictures. If you have a digital mixer, most of them have a cropping feature of some kind and you can do it in real time with the mixer and just record that as your scene.

Creating A Moving Line On A Map
Here s a way to use your camcorder in conjunction to create a moving line on a map

1. Set up your camcorder on a tripod to view the map of interest.

2. With the camera shooting, hand mark the route on the map with a coloured marker. Mark the route in short segments, say a half-inch or so, then take your hand completely out of the frame.

3. Repeat step 2 until the entire route is highlighted.

4. Input this video segment into the Kron and use Split to separate the hand visible portions from the parts without your hand.

5. Trim the line segment only clips to a common length and Add them to the Sb in sequence and Insert a Crossfade transition between each of them.

You now have a sequence with line that progressively moves across the map.

Here is a variation, At item 2, shoot the map without the route marked a few seconds, then shoot the map with the route entirely marked.
Now at item 5 instead of the crossfade, insert a horizontal wipe without blur effect from Space rack basic wipes between the two clips the length you need. IMHO the line move more progressively that way and it is much faster to do

Interval (Time-Lapse) Recording
The trick is to use the Fast Motion capability of the Casablanca to speed up the time-lapse clip by a factor equal to the number of frames collected after each interval. For example, the TRV900/PD100a can record a half-second (15 frames) of video for various interval periods. To turn this clip into one frame per interval, and therefore wonderfully smooth motion:

1. Trim the clip so that the start and end points are at an interval boundary.
2. Use Special / Fast Motion to speed up the clip by a factor of 3.
3. Select the newly created 3X clip and use Special / Fast Motion to speed it up by a factor of 5.

Extending An Empty Scene Beyond 10 Sec’s
I wanted to put my vertical roll on a blank scene - so I created one (it allows maximum 10 seconds)...then I used Special-Slow Motion to convert the blank scene to slow motion with the length I wanted...then I added my vertical roll and it filled the time I created.

To Convert Source Material To Black & White
If you know you want significant amounts of your source material to be black and white in your final edit, it may be quicker to set the SATURATION LEVEL slider on the VIDEO SETTINGS screen to zero during source material input than using the "B&W" IMAGE PROCESSING f/x. Or, run it through a processor amp / video mixer during input.

Using F/X Between 'Inserted' Video Scenes

Currently you cannot use f/x between INSERT scenes on the Casablanca Sb. The work around is very simple, and perhaps preferable.

1. Do a series of scenes on the Sb and dissolve them as you wish. Make a new scene out of the series. Remove the originals on the Sb since you will not need them later.

2. Make an audio dub using "Scene--Sample" from the original video you want to INSERT into. Place it on one of the other tracks, starting at the beginning of the original scene.

3. INSERT the new scene you created, which includes all of the f/x into the original scene.

4. Fade in and out to the inserted scene.

This takes little time but is easy to do.

With the Casablanca it seems that most things are possible; just that some are easier than others. To do a dissolve, (aka CROSSFADE), between two sections of video that you want to INSERT over existing video is not too difficult even though you can't do it directly. Here's how:

1. Move to the end of the Sb and ADD the two video segments that you want to do a CROSSFADE or dissolve.

1a. Leave an extra second or so of video at the START of the first clip but do trim the END of the first clip to where you want it.

1b. Leave an extra second or so of video at the END of the second clip, but do trim the START of the second video clip to where you want it.

2. In the TRANSITIONS screen select CROSSFADE and set to desired length and RENDER.

3. Select SCENE and set the RANGE to include 'EFFECTS + SCENE(S)'.

4. INSERT this new scene over the original video scene. Set the RANGE to START where desired, set the IN and OUT points to trim as needed. (Which is why we left extra video at the start of the first clip and extra video
at the end of the second clip - so we could trim it here. If you play it back and don't like the trim you can always retrim the START, IN and OUT points provided you left enough material to work with in steps 1a and 1b.)

5. DELETE the two scenes used to create the insert from the end of the timeline.

You will note that steps 1a, 1b, 2, and 4 would have needed to be done anyway; with some slight variations. Steps 1, 3, and 5 are all single button steps but they do make up a few extra mouse clicks.

Using Rab-Byte Animations

This tip is for those that need to do titles and intros to shows for public access or even for video projects that you want to use like the Rab-Byte series but still have something that's made especially for your client or show.

For example, I did a talk show that was called Interfaith Conversations that involved a priest, 2 or 3 ministers of different christen faiths and a rabbi. I used the Rab-Byte animation of a cross turning and flying through the air and did a slow dissolve into an animation of a turning star of David. Then another slow dissolve into the credits.

For the credits I used one of the Rab-Byte "frames" of gold and marble at the top & bottom 1/4 of the screen w/ black in the middle. I then made 6 sec. clip of it, copied it as many times as I needed for the different pages of text and used the Casablanca’s titler (using centered, light greenish aqua looks great ! ) for the credits. I faded in and out the names and the "frame" stayed constant. Added some upbeat music from another animation on the same Rab-byte tape and it looked great.

Using this same idea, I did a show that involved some sports enthusiasts that were trying to get the town to spend $1 million on fixing the ball fields at the high school, this included football baseball and soccer. I got out my animations and found a football on a stand that rotated in space and did a long dissolve to a rotating baseball...you get the idea, again adding some upbeat music from a different animation on the same tape.

3d Rotation Fly-On
The 3D Rotation transition is limited in that it only allows you to rotate a scene out to the next scene. This tip will show you how to use four CB features (Reverse,3D rotation, scene button and Blubox) to make scenes that rotate in as the new scene and I might add, the final effect is very impressive!

1. Create a scene

2. Split the scene into two chunks, the first chunk should be the length of the 3D rotation,(lets say 2 or 3 seconds), the second chunk will be added on after we process the first chunk.

3. Select the first chunk (the transition chunk) in the scene area and then select the special menu button and run the REVERSE filter on it.

4. Now create an empty scene that is equal to the length of the transition. Use a color that works well with the blubox transition.

5. Place the reversed version of the first chunk then the empty scene on the SB in that order.

6. Go to Transitions menu and apply the 3D rotation of your choice to the two scenes, making sure that the effect spans the entire length of the scene.

7. Make a scene of the effects and scenes.

8. Go to the Special menu and run the reverse filter on the newly created scene.

9. Remove the two scenes used to create the new scene from the Sb.

10. Place a new scene on the Sb to lead into the effect. Then place our newly created effect scene behind that scene.

11. Go to Transitions and apply the Bluebox effect (Chromakey Disk 5) to the two scenes making sure the effect spans the entire length of the newly created effect scene.

12. Use the Scene button to create a scene.

13. Finally, go to the SB and remove the two scenes. Now add the scene you just created and then add the second chunk of video that we split in step one and VIOLA, you have a beautiful fly on 3D rotation!

It really is a lot easier than it sounds and it is an impressive effect. Hope you enjoy it.

Short Summaries Of Videos (1)
In my recent wedding video I implemented a form summary as follows: Instead of using live video scenes, I opted for the STILL option, and created 5 second scenes of the important parts: kissing, cutting cake, toast, etc. Combined with 1 second crossfades at the end and with some beautiful music from the service itself, the ending montage came out very nice. I recommend this for many wedding videos because it provides for a quick recap of the day and leaves the viewer with a nicely edited montage in their head when they rewind the tape and turn their VCR off.

Short Summaries Of Videos (2)
You can take this tip one more step and create slo-motion to each clip. Add nice music, dissolves and have Kleenex on hand when you show it to your bride. That's what I've been doing with my weddings editing with the Casablanca. I usually follow that with credits. By the way, this could also stand alone as a short tape that could be used as an add on sale. The couple could purchase these as gifts for friends who were in the wedding party or for family members other than parents.

Copy Stand Techniques (1)
Those of you who use a camcorder on a copy stand may wish to try the following to do some slick pans across a photo on the stand:

1. Get two pieces of glass, heavy enough to be safe to work with.

2. Use double stick tape and attach one piece to the copy stand

3. Apply a coat of Vaseline to the top surface of the glass

4. Place the other piece of glass on top of the first piece.

Place your photo on top of the glass and copy away.

The Vaseline acts as a viscous dampening agent and the glass can be smoothly moved while you copy the photo. It really works slick. NOTE: You will have to replace the Vasoline occasionally because it gets tacky.

I tried this out with a couple of pieces of old picture frame glass to see if it worked, it did, and I then purchased a couple of pieces of ¼ inch glass to use permanently.

Ground Level Shooting
If you need sometimes to shoot quite close to ground level, fix your camera to a monopod, and use it upside down. Then use the Casablanca's Mirror effect (switching to on both vertical and horizontal mirror) to restore the video to normal perspective.

Revising Previously Edited Material
I needed to do an update on a project that had been archived to DV tape. The update would have the same narration and music tracks with only the video changed. The problem was that some of the new scenes were combinations of transitions and titles which were different from the length of the current scenes. I needed to be sure that the new video was in the same place, time wise, with the existing narration.

I entering the tape-archived material into the Casablanca as continuous scenes that I was going to use or not as the case may be and put it onto the story board. I made a scene of the whole thing and made a sample of the audio, so
I could use it later. I then ran a tape off the storyboard so that it had the running time on the tape. Now, wherever I am in the storyboard, when I select a clip and run it, I am given the time from the beginning, and I can run the tape at the same time and pause it, to see if I am at the same point in the presentation, which means it will line up with the audio. Also, having the audio in one piece means not having to go back and adjust the new pieces. I only have to mute them from the one line I have the old audio on.

How The Insert Menu Buttons Work In V2.4 And Later Software
Has anybody else noticed that the buttons on the INSERT menu work differently with v.2.4? Here's what I am experiencing:

START button - Works as before to pick the point in the base video scene where the INSERT video is to begin. You are basically sliding the inserted scene through the Sb video OUT button - It now shows the Sb video (the video into which the insert is being made) and allows you to select the point where the insert is to end. You are 'trimming' the end of the inserted video without changing its starting point.
IN button - Click the IN button once and you see the Sb video. You can now 'trim' the beginning of the inserted video which also changes its starting point in the Sb video.

Creating Interesting Title F/X
Put two or more copies of a title scene on the Sb and use some transitions like COLLAPSE, ROLL, CONE, etc., to get some interesting moving titles.

Getting Photos Into The Casablanca
For those of you interested in transferring either your prints or slides onto video, there is a great product out there. I recently bought a Fujix Photo-Video Imager FV-7. I needed to incorporate some slides into my videos, and discovered this is one way to go that works well. It consists of a video camera (very tiny), built in lights, holders that work with either slides or negatives, auto or manual focus and exposure, manual brightness and color controls. It has S-video and RCA video outputs. I talked with a wedding photographer who uses it to display negatives
(reversed to positives by the Fujix) on a large screen monitor to the brides who can select the shots before any expense has been put into any prints.

I've easily produced, relatively quickly, two slide shows transferred into videos with titles and music by just plugging this into my Casablanca via the S-video input. Once the images are in the Casablanca, all the possible
transitions and effects can be used, of course.

It measures 4" x 8-1/2" x 2". I bought it at a silent auction for $300, and the retailer told me that if I could get it at anything less than $400 I was getting a good buy. I think the full retail price is somewhere around $650.

Getting Rid Of "Trimmed" Material
Sometimes you may want to eliminate the trimmed head and tail of a trimmed clip. To do so, place the trimmed clip into the storyboard and make a SCENE of it. Voila! The new scene is the duration of the previously trimmed scene, without head or tail.
This technique is very useful when SPLITting long scenes - for SPLIT ignores TRIMs.

Multi-Line Sub-Titles
If you enter a multi-line sub-title, each line renders as a sub-title but plays sequentially in time. (Should be a use for this in there somewhere!)

Wysiwyg Titles
(using text table):
1. Start with a blank line. This will act as a spacer or top margin. Changing the font size on top line, adjusts the top margin.

2. Type in text line(s) - no more than one screen.

3. (This is KEY). Add blank lines after the text lines, until you are at the bottom of screen and the text lines jumps up a bit.

4. (This is also KEY). Adjust last blank line font size so that moving the cursor up to the very top and down to the very bottom of the text table no longer causes the middle lines of text to jump up and down.

When this is rendered, the text renders in the same position as what you see on the preview screen!
[CFL add: I switch font size to 10pt with first blank line after the text to provide more ease in getting close to bottom of screen without moving text up.]

A Great Title Background Effect

1. Make a SCENE of an entire project (say 20 mins).

2. Use SPECIAL to speed that up to be a 10 sec long scene. Make multiple copies.

3. Process each of these new scenes to be backward, mirror etc.

4. Line them up on the storyboard in alternating (forward, backward, mirror, etc) order.

5. Make a SCENE of the storyboard and stretch it to about 1 minute.

6. Render it to a 3D sphere with about a minute of black.

You get a mini slide show of your project spinning in a sphere. Add titles...a whole new world of creating has just opened up!

"Floating" Picture-In-Picture Effect
(Because of a bug in V2.081 s/w, this effect has a slight 'stutter' in the middle of final form. However, the bug will undoubtedly be fixed and this will be a great effect.)

The process so far (typical example):

1. Create a 5 second blue scene, archive the blue, add it to the storyboard.

2. Create a 5 second scene with moving video, add it to the storyboard.

3. Insert a 5 second PIP transition. Choose small, border off. Click position. Place the bounding box near the bottom center of the screen. Click OK. Render.

4. Make a scene of the effect.

5. Make two copies of the resulting scene. Name them "A" and "B" respectively.

6. Select Scene A. Select OUT, trim the edit BACK to 2.15 seconds in length.

7. Select Scene B. Select IN, trim scene length FORWARD TO 2.15 seconds in length.

8. Select the 5 second blue scene (archived blue). Trim to 2.15 seconds in length.

9. Place the 2.15 second blue scene into the storyboard.

10. Select Scene A and add it to the storyboard. (Important that A goes AFTER the blue scene.

11. Go into transition, choose the Shift 1 (NOT SHIFT!) Insert the transition. Set transition length to 2.15 seconds. Set direction to ->, set mode to Shift In, set bar to - - -. Make a scene of the effect. Name the scene "Shift In". Render.

12. Remove Scene A from the storyboard.

13. Add Scene B to the storyboard. (Important that Scene B goes BEFORE the 2.15 second blue scene.

14. Go into transition, insert Shift 1 transition. Set transition length to 2.15 seconds. Set direction to ->, set mode to DRAG OUT, bar to - - - . Make a scene of the effect. Name the scene "DragOut." Render.

15. Remove Scene B and the 2.15 second blue scene from the storyboard.

16. Add scenes "Shift In" and "Drag Out" to the storyboard.

17. Go into Image Processing (or Transition - doesn't matter). Click SCENE, then RANGE, to make a single scene out of the two scenes. Click OK. Go into EDIT. Find the resulting new scene. Rename it "Float."

18. You should now have a 5 second long PIP scene, surrounded by the archived blue, that floats across the screen.

19. You can now composite the floating scene over any other scene, using BLUE BOX.

3d Fly On / Fly Off Text
This tip will show how to a 3D fly off, with text underneath and then the next scene fly's on to the text. The fly on 3D not available and so is created below.

1 You need two scenes Scene A, Scene B at least 2 seconds long.

2 Create an empty 2 second scene ( any colour) put it on the storyboard and place a title on it (large Characters, 1 Line), then render and make into a scene. This will be Scene T, remove titled clip from storyboard.

3 Place scene A and T on to the storyboard. Go to transitions and select the 3D rotation to go over scenes A, T, for a duration of 2 seconds. Render.

4 Take Scene B and trim to the first 1 second, Then do a special and reverse the scene. ( this is now Scene B1)

5 Re-trim scene B again to its full length minus 1 second from the front.

6 Put Scene B1 and Scene T on to the story board. You should now have on the storyboard, Scene A, T, B1, T.

7 Go to transitions a select the 3D rotation to go over scenes B1, T, for a duration of 2 seconds.

8 Render the effect, then make a scene of the of the effect. (This is now Scene R1)

9 In the scene bin find the rendered clip and do a special and reverse it.

10 Remove scenes B1 and T From the storyboard and place scene R1 on to the storyboard in after scenes A,T. Then add Scene B after R1 on the storyboard

11 When this section is played Scene A flys off giving you time to read the text and immediately scene B fly's on for the video to continue.

Get The Audio To Finish At End Of Video (1)

1. Time the length of your music clip to the exact frame.

2. Time the length of your video clip to the exact frame.

3. Subtract the length of the music from the length of the video clip.

4. Use the answer to to step 3 to find the exact in point for the music dub when ranging in audio mix screen.

5. Hey Presto it should work beautifully.

Basically if the length of the video is 10 secs and the length of the music is 6 secs then the in point for the dub should be set 4 secs in from the start of the video clip, naturally the lengths of your music and video will be different but the basic formula seems to work for me everytime, I used to work this way when using linear edit suites and of course it's much more frame accurate on the Cassie.

Get The Audio To Finish At End Of Video (2)

Put the audio on to the SB at the roughly the place you want the music to start, go to the range button, select "IN" scroll to the end of the music towards the "END", right click mouse button (RCMB), select "START" scroll the audio to the end of your video to set the end point, then RCMB, select "IN" and scroll towards the front of the video fully or to the point where you want it to start ( do not forget to use the fade IN if starting in a middle of a music track)

3d Rotation Fly-On
The 3D Rotation transition is limited in that it only allows you to rotate a scene out to the next scene. This tip will show you how to use four CB features (Reverse,3D rotation, scene button and Blubox) to make scenes that rotate in as the new scene and I might add, the final effect is very impressive!

1. Create a scene

2. Split the scene into two chunks, the first chunk should be the length of the 3D rotation,(lets say 2 or 3 seconds), the second chunk will be added on after we process the first chunk.

3. Select the first chunk (the transition chunk) in the scene area and then select the special menu button and run the REVERSE filter on it.

4. Now create an empty scene that is equal to the length of the transition. Use a color that works well with the blubox transition.

5. Place the reversed version of the first chunk then the empty scene on the SB in that order.

6. Go to Transitions menu and apply the 3D rotation of your choice to the two scenes, making sure that the effect spans the entire length of the scene.

7. Make a scene of the effects and scenes.

8. Go to the Special menu and run the reverse filter on the newly created scene.

9. Remove the two scenes used to create the new scene from the Sb.

10. Place a new scene on the Sb to lead into the effect. Then place our newly created effect scene behind that scene.

11. Go to Transitions and apply the Bluebox effect (Chromakey Disk 5) to the two scenes making sure the effect spans the entire length of the newly created effect scene.

12. Use the Scene button to create a scene.

13. Finally, go to the SB and remove the two scenes. Now add the scene you just created and then add the second chunk of video that we split in step one and VIOLA, you have a beautiful fly on 3D rotation!

It really is a lot easier than it sounds and it is an impressive effect. Hope you enjoy it.

Creating Interesting Title F/X
Put two or more copies of a title scene on the Sb and use some transitions like COLLAPSE, ROLL, CONE, etc., to get some interesting moving titles.

Multi-Line Sub-Titles
If you enter a multi-line sub-title, each line renders as a sub-title but plays sequentially in time. (Should be a use for this in there somewhere!)

Wysiwyg Titles
(using text table):
1. Start with a blank line. This will act as a spacer or top margin. Changing the font size on top line, adjusts the top margin.

2. Type in text line(s) - no more than one screen.

3. (This is KEY). Add blank lines after the text lines, until you are at the bottom of screen and the text lines jumps up a bit.

4. (This is also KEY). Adjust last blank line font size so that moving the cursor up to the very top and down to the very bottom of the text table no longer causes the middle lines of text to jump up and down.

When this is rendered, the text renders in the same position as what you see on the preview screen!
[CFL add: I switch font size to 10pt with first blank line after the text to provide more ease in getting close to bottom of screen without moving text up.]