Stop Motion FX for Final Cut Pro

Stop Motion FX Turn a clip from 1 to 60 frames per second with one powerful plugin. Real stepped motion with no retiming, no exporting and no motion blur. The fastest way to get the 12fps documentary stutter look inside Final Cut Pro. Everything in the download What's included in the pack? 4 plugins Frame rate Stop Motion Frame Rate 1 to 60 fps on any clip Frames are held rather than blended, so movement steps cleanly instead of smearing. Includes trail blur for echoes behind fast motion, frame offset to choose which frame gets held, and optional frame blending. Hover for detail Style Cutout Animator Stroke, shadow and wobble Turns a cut out subject into a paper cutout character with a clean stroke, a drop shadow that lifts it off the background, and a subtle randomised rotation. Styling options include hatched, comic book, chromatic aberration and glow. Hover for detail Style Flicker Exposure shift and dust Randomises brightness frame to frame, the way light shifts between exposures on a real frame by frame shoot. Dust and hair particles can be switched on for the look of film that has sat in a gate. Hover for detail Style Handheld Puts a person behind the camera Adds a small randomised drift to position. Stop motion is almost always shot locked off on a tripod, and that dead stillness is usually the thing that gives it away as fake. Hover for detail Better value This pack is included in the Ultimate Bundle Every pack we make for Final Cut Pro in one big download. If you are likely to buy more than a couple of packs in the future, the bundle pays for itself. View the Ultimate Bundle The look people are chasing The documentary and video essay stutter If you have watched a big explainer channel and wondered why the archive stills and graphics judder, that is the 12fps look. Motion graphics get built at 12 frames per second and dropped into a 24fps edit, so they stutter against the smooth footage around them. It has quietly become the most recognisable move in the modern YouTube documentary, and almost every video essay channel now speaks the same visual language. The catch has always been that it is an After Effects job. How it has always been done After Effects, and a round trip Take the shot out of your edit and into After Effects Rebuild it as a composition set to 12 frames per second Render the whole thing out at 12 frames per second Import the render back into Final Cut Pro and line it up again Decide 12 was too choppy, and start the whole lot again Locked in the moment you render. Every change means another round trip. With this pack One drag, on the timeline Drag the effect onto the clip That is the whole process. Move one slider to change the rate whenever you like, and the clip never leaves Final Cut Pro. Cutout Animator Turn a flat PNG into an animated element Drop it onto any transparent image or cut out subject and it lands with a clean stroke, a drop shadow that lifts it off the background and a gentle wobble. No keyframes, no trip out to Motion, all of it live on your timeline. Top tip Cut a subject out with Magnetic Mask in 5 steps Cutout Animator styles a subject that is already cut out. Either drop it on a PNG with a transparent background, or isolate a subject from a video clip using Magnetic Mask, which is built into Final Cut Pro and takes under a minute on a reasonably clean shot. Select your clip and park the playhead on a frame where the subject is clear. Search "magnetic" in the Effects browser and drag Magnetic Mask onto the clip. Click your subject in the viewer to tell Final Cut Pro what to mask. Keep clicking to add areas, or switch to Remove to take parts away. Click Analyze to track the mask across the whole clip, then click Done. Drop Cutout Animator onto the same clip. One thing to watch. Magnetic Mask has to sit above Cutout Animator in the Video inspector. Drag it to the top of the effect stack. If it sits below, the stroke draws around the full rectangular frame instead of your subject, which is the most common reason people think the effect is not working. Questions Does this change my project frame rate? No. Your project settings, timeline and export stay as they are. The effect only changes how many distinct frames you see inside the clip, so audio stays in sync and a stepped clip sits happily next to a normal one. What frame rate should I use? Around 8 to 12 suits most footage, with 12 matching the rate used for animating on twos. Drop to 2 to 6 for a harder, more deliberate look on titles and product shots. Above 15 it becomes a subtle texture rather than an obvious style. Can I use this for documentary and video essay style edits? That is one of the main reasons people buy it. The documentary stutter is graphics built and rendered at 12 frames per second, sitting inside a 24fps edit. Traditionally that means doing your motion work in After Effects and exporting at the lower rate. Here you set the frame rate on any clip, title or graphic directly on the Final Cut Pro timeline, and change it whenever you like. Flicker and Handheld add the grain and imperfection the style leans on, and Cutout Animator gives you the stroked, shadowed cut out treatment used on photos and archive stills. How is this different from slowing the clip down? Slowing a clip changes its duration and asks Final Cut Pro to blend or invent frames, which brings motion blur and ghosting. This keeps the original speed and length and simply repeats each frame, giving a clean hold on every step. Does Cutout Animator remove the background for me? No. It styles the edge of something that already has a transparent background, such as a PNG or a clip you have isolated with Magnetic Mask. Can I use it on titles and graphics? Yes. Apply it to a title, generator or compound clip and any animation inside will step in the same way. The glow and stroke options in Cutout Animator work particularly well on text. How do I install it? Use our free Plugin Installer app and everything lands in the right place automatically. Full instructions are at fcpxfullaccess.com/pages/install.