Applying the Finishing Touches - The Craft of the Cut - page 276

and drop shadow of the text. Each of these panels has similar settings that let you change such things as color,
blur, and opacity of text elements. At the top of the Inspector's Text pane, you'll also find a pop-up list of style
templates to choose from.
Creating the opening credits
Let's create some opening credits for Pranks using the tools we have available in Final Cut Pro. We can super-
impose these credits over the opening toy box shot (Scene 1 Slate 1 Take 5) that starts off the movie. You can
see a completed version of this credit sequence on the Pranks Final Cut Project included on the DVD, but for
now we'll use the Pranks Work in Progress Project and start afresh. We'll open with a credit for the production
company, followed by the names of the three actors in the movie, and finally, we'll superimpose the movie's
title over the teddy bear at the end of the shot. Remember: We created a freeze frame of the teddy bear in
Chapter 14 for just this reason.
We need to create five titles for the opening credit sequence:
• A Pranks Media Production
• Ellie Darcey-Alden
• Jenny Seagrove
• Joseph Darcey-Alden
• Pranks
To follow along, double-click the Craft of the Cut disc image to mount it and launch Final Cut Pro. In the Pro-
ject Library, double-click the Pranks Work in Progress Project to open it in the Timeline.
1. To create the first credit, position the playhead at 17 frames on the Timeline and press Control+T to con-
nect a title over the clip.
2. Click the title to select it and press Control+D to see its duration in the Dashboard. The default duration
is 10 seconds, which is far too long for our needs. Enter 4.12 and press Return to reduce the length to 4
seconds and 12 frames.
3. With the title still selected in the Timeline, Press +4 to open the Inspector and click the Text pane. In
the Text field type A Pranks Media Production , making sure to add a Return after the words A and Media
so that the text is spread over three lines (see Figure 15.15).
4. From the Font pop-up, choose Trajan Pro from the list. You'll most likely recognize this font from many
Hollywood movies.
5. In the Text field, highlight the letter A with your cursor and change the size by typing 66 into the Size
field. Do the same for the word Production. Next highlight the words Pranks Media and change the size to
120. Double-click the text in the Viewer and use the round button to center the text in the frame.