Use Superimpose for Text Clips

[ This article was first published in the February, 2006, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]

Recently, a student came to me with problems in keying text clips in Final Cut.

During the course of discussing his problem, I discovered that he was editing his text clips to the Timeline, rather than superimposing them.

The key points to remember in keying text clips in Final Cut are the following:

1. Put your playhead in the middle of the clip into which you want to key text.
2. Connect the left patch panel tab (from the Viewer) to the same track as the clip your playhead is in. Generally, this means v1 > V1.
3. Generate your text from the Viewer pop-up menu
4. Superimpose your text by dragging it from the Viewer to the Canvas Superimpose overlay menu
5. Double-click the text from the Timeline to load it into the Viewer.

Following this procedure will automatically:

• Key your text into your background clip using the alpha channel built into all FCP text clips
• Trim your text clip so it runs the same length as your background clip
• Allow you to see your key while you edit your text

Simply editing your clip to the Timeline does not accomplish the same results nearly as quickly or as easily.