Peter Wiggins sent me a note earlier this week: “I’m pleased to announce that Idustrial Revolution’s new FCPX plugin Viral Video is now live on FxFactory. It is a set of Titles, Effects and Transitions that combined make videos compelling watching on social media – especially on mobile devices. There are two sets – one for 16:9 and one for square media.”
So, I moseyed over to FX Factory, which distributes the plug-in, to take a look.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
If you need to create videos – viral or otherwise – that require a lot of animated text, this plug-in can make your life a LOT easier.
There are 2.5 bajillion formatting options, full-support for all the fonts in your NLE and sizes for both 16:9 and square video formats.
Best of all, the animations are pre-built, yet can be tweaked in dozens of different ways.
This package can pay for itself in time-savings alone the first time you use it.
Product: Viral Video
NLEs Supported: Final Cut Pro X 10.3 or later
Developer: Idustrial Revolution
Website: idustrialrevolution.com/x10-viral-video
Price: $49 (US) – $39 special until March 23, 2017
Available through: FXFactory.com
A free trial version is available.
INSTALLATION
Installation is handled as part of the FX Factory interface, which makes managing lots of different plug-ins really easy.
OPERATION
These new templates are located in the Titles Browser. There are 16 to choose from, each of which is highly customizable.
You edit them into the timeline the same as any other title – either positioned above a video clip, or full-screen in the Timeline.
NOTE: This plug-in only supports Apple Final Cut Pro X v.10.3 or later.
What I like about these is that the default settings are highly-readable and the animation settings make sense. So, if you are in a hurry, all you need to do is select the text in the Viewer and change it to meet the needs of your video.
While the backgrounds are all solid colors, you can change the color as you see fit.
In fact, there are 34 color presets controlling both the background and text. Remember, this package is designed to provide text narration for a video, if you need more complex backgrounds, you can create them as needed in Final Cut.
Another thing I really like is that the default text position is aligned with Action Safe. This prevents text getting cut off by placing it too close to the edge of the frame. And we can control the opacity of the background.
But the real power of this package is in the control it provides over formatting and animation, without needing to understand anything about Motion or modifying templates.
In addition to full text formatting controls using Inspector > Text, we have control over:
Could you create more sophisticated text and background animations in Motion? Absolutely yes. Could you do it as quickly? Not a chance.
CONVERSATION WITH PETER WIGGINS
Larry: Peter, why did you create this?
Peter: To help people annotate videos so that when they are played on social media, a lot of info is presented without having to have the sound [turned] up. [This is] especially important now [that] a lot of media is consumed on mobile devices. Having said that, they have already been used on broadcast TV!
Larry: How do you see this being used?
Peter: In whatever way people choose, they are very customizable. So it might be a corporate user matching colors of a brand or just a Facebook user adding a bit of style to their videos, they all have the same tools available.
It is not just a collection of animating titles, there are transitions and effects that when put together give an ‘integrated’ result. By that I mean you can animate the background and title at the same, or at different times.
You are not locked into one template, a large composite of a panning background picture and multiple timed overlaid graphics can all animate at once. Also there are two sets, one for 16:9 and one for square video. A lot of other FCP X titles and transitions get ‘cut off’ in square projects.
Larry: Out of curiosity, are you the same Peter Wiggins that runs FCP.co?
Peter: Yes, the same one. Interesting though, I’ve been making plugins for twice as long as I have been running FCP.co.
SUMMARY
Peter and his team have created a flexible plug-in that simplifies adding and animating text to a video. The default choices are clear, easy to read, and designed to attract attention from across the room, with plenty of customization options for editors that want to play.
I really like this plug-in – here’s a demo.
