Working with Effects - The Craft of the Cut - page 254

Figure 14.7 Creating curved paths with Bezier handles.
Working with the Animation Editor
Any keyframes that you apply via the Viewer's on-screen controls or the Inspector can be manipulated in the
Timeline using the Animation Editor. To open the Animation Editor, select a clip in the Timeline and choose
Clip ⇒ Show Video Animation or press Control+V. The Animation Editor opens above the clip and lists all the
built-in effects, plus any other effects that have been applied to the clip. Active effects are highlighted in blue,
and effects that have been disabled in the Inspector are grayed out (see Figure 14.8). Effects can be turned on
and off using the blue button next to the effect's name.
Figure 14.8 The Animation Editor in the Timeline.
Small diamonds that run across a dotted line in the Animation Editor represent the keyframes that have been ap-
plied. You can add additional keyframes by Option-clicking the line. Clicking and dragging on a keyframe lets
you reposition the keyframe and control the speed of the animation. The shorter the distance between key-
frames, the faster the speed of the animation. Final Cut Pro restricts the keyframe's movements horizontally or
vertically, as discussed in Chapter 13.
If you want to focus on a single effect in the Animation Editor, select the clip and, with its Animation Editor
already activated on the Timeline, choose Clip ⇒ Solo Animation or press Control+Shift+V. Soloing the Anima-
tion Editor hides all the effects except for the default Opacity effect, but you can easily change this to an effect
of your choice by using the pop-up menu at the top of the effect (see Figure 14.9). Bringing up the Opacity con-
trol in this way allows you to easily create fade-ins and fade-outs using handles available inside the Animation
Editor (see Figure 14.10). To show these, expand the effect using the disclosure triangle on the top-right corner
of the effect.