Now that you have imported and organized your media, and brought your media down to the timeline, you can begin adding transitions, titles, effects, and other elements to your project.
1. The Inspector. Primary way to view and adjust the properties of clips, effects, and other FCP elements.
When inspecting a clip on the timeline you can modify it in many ways. Primarily, you can adjust the Color, Saturation, and Brightness, as well as the Position, Rotation, and Scale, and Opacity, along with other variables.
2. Effects. Allows you to drag effects directly onto clips on your timeline. You can search all browsers by typing into the filter bar at the bottom. Effects can be adjusted in the Inspector. Blurs and keying effects are commonly used.
3. Transitions. Allows you to access dissolves, wipes, and 3D effects that transition from one clip to another. Transitions can only be used on clips on the main storyline, or on connected media that you created a storyline around.
4. Titles. Allows you to place titles directly onto your timeline either as connected media or on the main storyline. You can then modify them directly in the viewer or in the inspector.
5. Generators. Contains numerous elements created within FCP. Some of the most useful are solids and textures such as black mattes and other backgrounds. All generators can be further modified in the inspector. Many have several options to choose from.
The photo below shows a transition, a title, and a generator clip on a timeline.
Now that you have added these elements to your project, the next step to learn is to share it.
This page was written by Kevin May for the University of Oregon Cinema Studies Department, and is published under Creative Commons license (CC BY NC SA 3.0).