Motion and keyframes

Every video clip, on V1 or above, has Motion: its position on the stage, its scale and rotation about an anchor point, its opacity, and a crop on each edge. Any of them can be animated with keys, the way a video editor's effect controls work. The program monitor shows only the stage: whatever is moved or scaled past its edge is cut there, as it is in the export.

Move, scale and turn a clip on the monitor

1. 1.Pick a clip: its box shows on the monitor0:00
2. 2.Drag inside the box to move it0:00
3. 3.Drag a corner to scale it0:02
4. 4.Drag the handle above it to rotate it0:04
5. 5.The inspector’s Motion shows its values0:06

Description

The AI trailer in Edit, the That pops title card on V2 picked. Its box shows on the program monitor. Dragging inside the box moves the title to the lower right; dragging a corner shrinks it about its anchor; dragging the round handle above its top edge turns it. The clip inspector’s Motion section shows the new position, scale and rotation.

1. Pick a clip on the timeline. Its box shows on the program monitor, with its anchor (the crosshair) in the middle.
2. Drag inside the box to move the clip.
3. Drag a corner to scale it about its anchor.
4. Drag the round handle above its top edge to rotate it. Hold Shift for 15° steps.
5. The clip inspector's Motion shows the new values.

Drag the crosshair to move the anchor itself, the point the clip scales and turns about: the picture stays where it is. Every drag is one undo step.

Animate it with keys

1. 1.Click Scale’s stopwatch: a key at the playhead0:00
2. 2.Move the playhead and type a new value: a second key0:01
3. 3.Play it: the shot pushes in0:03

Description

The AI trailer in Edit, the Shapes snap shot on V1 picked, the playhead at its start. In the clip inspector, the stopwatch beside Scale turns on animation and keys 100% there. The playhead moves three seconds on and Scale is typed as 130%: a second key. Diamonds mark the keys on the clip, and playing it shows the shot pushing in.

1. Pick a clip and put the playhead where the move starts.
2. Click the stopwatch beside a property (Scale, here). Its stopwatch turns on and keys the value it has there.
3. Move the playhead and change the value, by typing, scrubbing the field or dragging on the monitor: a second key.
4. Play it.

While a property's stopwatch is on, every change keys it at the playhead. With it off, the property is one value for the whole clip. Click the stopwatch again to turn it off: its keys go and it keeps the value it has at the playhead.

Beside an animated property, ◀ and ▶ jump to its previous and next keys, and ◆ adds or removes a key at the playhead. Keys of Motion properties show as diamonds along the foot of the clip on the timeline: click one to go to it.

Fade with the opacity line

1. 1.⌘-click the opacity line to add a key0:00
2. 2.Drag a key down to fade to nothing0:02
3. 3.Play across it0:04

Description

The AI trailer’s V2 titles. The line across the That pops title is its opacity. ⌘-clicking the line twice adds two keys; the second is dragged down to the bottom, so the title fades out between them. The same line on the music clip on A1 is its volume, keyed the same way.

1. The line across a video clip is its opacity; across an audio clip, its volume.
2. ⌘-click (Ctrl-click) the line to add a key there.
3. Drag a key up or down to change its level, or left and right to move it (Shift keeps its time).
4. Alt-click a key to remove it.

On a clip with no keys, drag the line itself to set the level for the whole clip.

Crop

1. 1.Pick the clip on top, then set the crop of an edge0:00
2. 2.The clip below shows where it is cut away0:01

Description

The AI trailer in Edit with the KA-POW shot moved to V2 over Brush strokes. In the clip inspector, Crop Right is set to 50%: the right half of KA-POW is cut away and Brush strokes shows through there, so the two shots share the frame side by side.

1. Pick the clip on top.
2. In the inspector's Crop, set how much of each edge to cut away (Left, Top, Right, Bottom, in % of the frame).

What's cut away shows the tracks below. A crop moves, scales and turns with the clip, and can be animated like any other property: a wipe is a crop keyed from 0% to 100%.

Recipes

• Picture-in-picture: put the inset on V2, scale it to 30–40% and drag it into a corner. Add a small Crop to trim its edges.
• Split screen: two clips, one on V1 and one on V2. Crop the V2 clip's right half (Crop Right 50%), or scale both to 50% and move them to each side.
• Push-in (Ken Burns): stopwatch on Scale at the start of a shot, 100%; a few seconds later, 110–130%. Animate Position too to drift across a still.
• Title that flies in: key Position X far off the stage at the clip's start and 0 half a second later. The ease on each key is set from the agent, CLI and API (ease on a key edit); in the editor keys ease linearly.
• Reframe 16:9 for 9:16: in a 1080×1920 sequence, scale a 1920×1080 shot up to cover the height, then key Position X to follow the action.

Reference: the Motion section

The ↺ beside Motion resets position, scale, rotation and anchor; the one beside Crop resets the crop. In the CLI, the agent and plugins these are the motion and key edits: see Agent, CLI, API and plugins.