You can animate video settings over time using keyframes. For example, with keyframes (not to be confused with green-screen keying), you can fade a timeline clip from invisible to visible, change color adjustment settings over the course of a clip, or slowly reposition and scale up an image in the video frame to create a pan-and-zoom effect.
How keyframing works
In Final Cut Pro for iPad, you can use keyframes to animate: A clip’s opacity; Transform settings that modify a timeline clip’s spatial properties in the video frame, including the clip’s position, scale, rotation angle, and cropping; Settings of video effects you’ve applied to a timeline clip, such as the amount of blur in a blur effect; Settings of title and object clips you’ve added to the timeline.
You add keyframes for specific effect settings in the keyframe editor at the bottom of the timeline, then adjust their values in the inspector. For example, if you want a clip in the timeline to slowly blur into a gauzy haze, you could add the Gaussian blur effect to the clip, then add two keyframes to the effect’s Amount setting-the first with a value of 0, and the second with a value of 1. When you play back the clip, Final Cut Pro interpolates the values between 0 and 1, creating an animated defocus effect. You can also keyframe volume changes in audio clips.
Note: Transitions can’t be keyframed.
Go to keyframes
Go to the Final Cut Pro app on your iPad. Open a project. In the timeline, tap the clip you want to modify, then tap Animate in the lower-left corner of the screen. The keyframe editor opens under the timeline, showing the selected clip as a dotted line, as well as the name of the clip and the setting to be keyframed (Format • Opacity, for example). To choose a different setting to keyframe, tap next to the setting name, then tap an item in the list. The Opacity setting and the transform settings (Scale, Position, Rotation, and so on) are available for all video clips. If you’ve applied one or more video effects to the selected clip, additional effect settings appear in the list. Title and object clips you add to the timeline from the content browser also have keyframeable settings that appear in the list. To assign multiple settings for an effect, object, or title to a single keyframe, tap All.
Drag the playhead to the location in the clip where you want the animation to begin. Tip: You can use the jog wheel to position the playhead more precisely. Tap at the bottom of the screen to add the first keyframe. The keyframe appears in the keyframe editor as a diamond shape. (If you chose All in step 3, a down arrow appears below the diamond, indicating that the keyframe affects multiple effect settings.) Drag the playhead to the location in the clip where you want the animation to end, then tap . To create a more complex animation sequence, add additional keyframes by dragging the playhead and tapping . You can also add keyframes to different effect settings in the same clip by repeating steps 3 through 6. Keyframes for other settings in the same effect appear in the keyframe editor as dimmed diamond shapes, which helps you see the timing of other keyframed settings.
When you add keyframes, they retain the clip’s current (nonanimated) settings until you modify those settings in the inspector. See Adjust keyframe settings in the inspector, below.
Adjust keyframe settings in the inspector
After you add keyframes to a clip, you must adjust their settings in the inspector to create the animation. Go to the Final Cut Pro app on your iPad. Open a project. In the timeline, tap a clip that has keyframes, then drag the playhead over the clip. Tap Animate in the lower-left corner of the screen to open the keyframe editor (if it’s not already open). If you don’t see the keyframes you added, tap next to the setting name (above the dotted line), then tap the setting you previously keyframed. The keyframes appear as diamonds along the dotted line. To select the keyframe you want to adjust, do one of the following: Tap the keyframe. Tap or at the bottom of the screen.
Note: If you want the animation to progress from an effect’s current settings to new settings, select the second keyframe and leave the first keyframe as it is. Tap Inspect in the lower-left corner of the screen, then do one of the following, depending on the setting you keyframed (shown at the top of the keyframe editor): Opacity settings: Tap at the top of the inspector, then drag the Opacity slider, or tap the Opacity number field and use the keypad to set a new value. Transform settings: Tap at the top of the inspector, then adjust the relevant control (Scale or Rotation, for example). If you added keyframes to the Transform • All category, you can adjust multiple settings in the inspector. (You can also drag onscreen controls in the viewer.) See Intro to transform effects. Effect settings: Tap at the top of the inspector, tap the name of the effect, then adjust the relevant control. If you added keyframes to the [effect name] • All category, you can adjust multiple settings in the inspector. (For some effects, you can also drag onscreen controls in the viewer.) See Adjust video effects. Object settings: Tap at the top of the inspector, then adjust the relevant control under Options. If you added keyframes to the [object name] • All category, you can adjust multiple settings in the inspector. (For some objects, you can also drag onscreen controls in the viewer.) See Adjust background and object clips. Title settings: Tap at the top of the inspector, then adjust the relevant control under Options (All, Retime: In, Fade Duration: In, Retime: Out, or Fade Duration: Out).
If you don’t see the result you expect, make sure the Animation Style setting under Options is not set to None. When you play back the clip, Final Cut Pro interpolates the setting values between one keyframe and another, creating a smooth animated effect. You can add and modify as many keyframes as necessary to achieve a specific effect. You can also add keyframes to different effect settings in the same clip to create complex animations.
Reposition keyframes in the keyframe editor
You can reposition keyframes to adjust the timing of an animated effect. Go to the Final Cut Pro app on your iPad. Open a project. In the timeline, tap a clip that has keyframes, then drag the playhead over the clip. Tap Animate in the lower-left corner of the screen to open the keyframe editor (if it’s not already open). If you don’t see the keyframes you want to reposition, tap next to the setting name (above the dotted line), then tap the setting you previously keyframed. The keyframes appear as diamonds along the dotted line. To select the keyframe you want to reposition, do one of the following: Tap the keyframe. Tap or at the bottom of the screen. To reposition the selected keyframe, do one of the following: Drag the keyframe to a new position on the dotted line. Open the jog wheel, tap next to the jog wheel, then drag in the jog wheel to nudge the keyframe incrementally along the dotted line.
Copy keyframes between clips
After you add keyframe animation to one clip, you can copy the keyframes to another clip, to duplicate the effect there. Note: When you copy and paste keyframes, all effects or transforms applied to the first clip are transferred to the second clip. Go to the Final Cut Pro app on your iPad. Open a project. In the timeline, tap a clip that has keyframes, then drag the playhead over the clip. Tap Animate in the lower-left corner of the screen to open the keyframe editor (if it’s not already open). If you don’t see the keyframes you want to copy, tap next to the setting name (above the dotted line), then tap the setting you previously keyframed. The keyframes appear as diamonds along the dotted line. Tap Inspect in the lower-left corner of the screen, then do one of the following, depending on the setting you keyframed (shown at the top of the keyframe editor): Opacity settings: Tap at the top of the inspector, tap , then tap Copy All Settings. Tap another clip in the timeline, tap again, then tap Paste Format Settings. Transform settings: Tap at the top of the inspector, tap , then tap Copy All Settings. Tap another clip in the timeline, tap again, then tap Paste Transform Settings. All of the format, transform, or effect settings in the first clip are transferred to the second clip.
Delete keyframes
Go to the Final Cut Pro app on your iPad. Open a project. In the timeline, tap a clip that has keyframes, then drag the playhead over the clip. Tap Animate in the lower-left corner of the screen to open the keyframe editor (if it’s not already open). If you don’t see the keyframes you want to remove, tap next to the setting name (above the dotted line), then tap the setting you previously keyframed. The keyframes appear as diamonds along the dotted line. To select the keyframe you want to delete, do one of the following: Tap the keyframe. Tap or at the bottom of the screen. Tap . Note: You can also delete all keyframes in a given effect from the inspector. Tap in the Format tab or Transform tab , then tap Reset Transform Settings, or tap an Effect name in the Effects tab , then tap Reset.
With Final Cut Pro, you can use keyframes to create simple changes to audio over time, such as fading the volume or an effect in or out in the middle of a clip. You place keyframes at specific points in a clip to change the parameter value of an audio enhancement or effect at those points. For example, you can keyframe specific points for volume or for an effect such as reverb or distortion. You can set keyframes to adjust a clip’s volume directly in the timeline or the Audio inspector. To see keyframes in the timeline for all other effects, you need to display the Audio Animation editor.
Keyframes in audio and video
Add keyframes to a clip: In Final Cut Pro, do one of the following: Select the clip in the timeline, then choose Clip > Show Audio Animation (or press Control-A). Control-click the clip in the timeline and choose Show Audio Animation. If you’re adding keyframes for volume adjustment only, go to step 4. Each effect in the Audio Animation editor has a separate area for adding keyframes. Some effects have more than one parameter and allow you to add keyframes to individual parameters separately. They appear in the Audio Animation editor with a triangle next to the effect’s name or in the Audio inspector as additional parameter controls. In either the Audio Animation editor or the Effects section of the Audio inspector, select the effect for which you want to add keyframes. Do one of the following: See expanded parameters in the Audio Animation editor: Click the triangle to choose an individual parameter from the pop-up menu, or choose All to see all keyframes. See expanded parameters in the Audio inspector: Click the Parameters disclosure triangle for the effect. For each parameter, do one of the following: In the Audio Animation editor (or the audio clip for volume only): Option-click (or press Option-K) at a point on the horizontal effect control where you want to add a keyframe. Keyframes for volume adjustment appear as white diamonds. For effects with more than one parameter, keyframes for the selected parameter appear as white diamonds, and keyframes for other parameters appear gray. Keyframes appear as white diamonds for all parameters when you choose All from the effect pop-up menu. Double diamonds indicate that you added a keyframe for more than one parameter at that point. In the Audio inspector: Position the playhead in the timeline at the point where you want to add a keyframe, then click the Keyframe button (or press Option-K). After you add a keyframe, the Keyframe button changes to solid white, indicating that the playhead is currently on this keyframe. When you move the playhead in the timeline, arrows appear next to the Keyframe button in the Audio inspector to indicate which side of the playhead has keyframes. To go to the previous keyframe, click the left arrow or press Option-Semicolon (;). To go to the next keyframe, click the right arrow or press Option-Apostrophe (’). Add keyframes as needed. Tip: After you’ve added one keyframe, you can add another automatically by moving the playhead in the timeline and then adjusting the effect parameter (or the Volume slider when keyframing volume) in the Audio inspector. Add keyframes automatically across a selected area. When making volume adjustments to a clip in the timeline, you can use the Range Selection tool to add keyframes automatically across a selected range. If an effect appears in the Audio Animation editor with a disclosure button, you can use either the Select tool or the Range Selection tool to add keyframes across a selected area. In Final Cut Pro, do one of the following: Select the clip in the timeline, then choose Clip > Show Audio Animation (or press Control-A). Control-click the clip in the timeline and choose Show Audio Animation. If you’re adding keyframes for volume adjustment only, go to step 3. Select an effect, then click the disclosure button to expand it in the Audio Animation editor. In the timeline, do one of the following: If you’re adjusting volume only: Click the Tools pop-up menu above the timeline and choose Range Selection (or press R). The pointer changes to the Range Selection tool. If you’re adjusting an effect in the Audio Animation editor: Click the Tools pop-up menu above the timeline and choose either Select or Range Selection (or press A for Select, or R for Range Selection). Drag across the area where you want to adjust the volume or effect. Adjust the volume or effect within the range by dragging the effect’s horizontal control up or down. Keyframes are automatically created along the adjustment points within the range. Adjust keyframes in the Audio Animation editor. You can move keyframes left or right in the Audio Animation editor. If an effect appears with a disclosure button, you can expand the effect view and move keyframes up or down to change the parameter value. In Final Cut Pro, select a keyframe. Do one of the following: To change the keyframe’s position in time, drag it left or right. As you drag, the timecode value appears. If an effect appears with a disclosure button, click the button (or double-click the effect) to expand the effect view. With the effect view expanded, you can drag the keyframe up or down to change the effect’s parameter value. To add another keyframe, Option-click (or press Option-K) at a point on the effect control where you want to add the keyframe. To add a keyframe and change the effect’s parameter value at the same time, Option-click while dragging the effect control up or down. Adjust keyframes in the Audio inspector. For many effects, you adjust the parameter value of individual keyframes using the Audio inspector. When you move the playhead in the timeline, arrows appear next to the Keyframe button in the Audio inspector to indicate which side of the playhead has keyframes. To go to the previous keyframe, click the left arrow. To go to the next keyframe, click the right arrow. Or, to use keyboard shortcuts, select the parameter in the Audio Animation editor, then press Option-Semicolon (;) to go to the previous keyframe or Option-Apostrophe (’) to go to the next keyframe. If the Audio inspector isn’t already shown, choose Window > Show in Workspace > Inspector (or press Command-4). Click the Inspector button on the right side of the toolbar. Click the Audio button at the top of the inspector. Select a keyframe or position the playhead on a keyframe, then adjust the parameter value in the Audio inspector. To change the value at the next keyframe, go to the next keyframe, then adjust the value again. Delete keyframes. In Final Cut Pro, do one of the following: Select a keyframe in the Audio Animation editor, then press Option-Shift-Delete. Navigate to a keyframe in the Audio inspector, then click the Keyframe button. Hide audio animation. In Final Cut Pro, do one of the following: Select the clip in the timeline, then choose Clip > Hide Audio Animation (or press Control-A). Click the close button in the upper-left corner of the Audio Animation editor. Control-click the clip in the timeline and choose Hide Audio Animation. You can also manipulate multiple keyframes simultaneously. This works the same way for audio keyframes as it does for video keyframes. See Modify groups of keyframes. To copy specific keyframes between different attributes or between different clips, see Copy and paste keyframes.
Tip: If you applied a reverb effect to a clip and you want the reverb to extend beyond the end of the clip, add a hold segment to the last frame. I hope the information is helpful!
Practical example from a video transcript
Transcript: Hey there, it's Izzy here again. In this video I'll cover how to work with keyframes and animation in Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro has some great tools built into it help us do this kind of work. And by the way, if you've never worked with keyframes or animation before, that's totally fine because this video will cover the fundamentals, the very basics. To demonstrate this, I have a couple video clips in a very simple project here. This first one is of my daughter, Trinity laughing. And the second clip is one we're going to use as a background, very simple video clip there. Okay, so I'm going to layer the Trinity clip on top of the other one. And that's called "compositing" when you start layering elements in your video project on top of each other. And what I'll do is I'll just click and drag this one up like this, and as I drag it up, you can see that the magnetic timeline there reduces the position of this background clip. So now it's behind the laughing clip here. And you can't see this background clip because the laughing clip is on top. So you can see that it's blocking the view of the clip underneath that that's the way it works in Final Cut Pro, but I can reveal that bottom clip just by reducing the size of this clip. With it selected, I'll go up to the inspector, and I'll go to the video inspector under transform under scale, I'm just going to change the scale percentage to 50%. I'll type in 50 and hit return. Okay, so now it's half the size that it was before. And sure enough, you can see this other clip behind it. And to make it easier to see this clip and reduce the distractions, I'm going to add a blur. Now I've already added a blur there. So I'll just turn it on. I'll just select the clip here and go to the video inspector. Here's the gaussian blur. I'll just check this box there. Okay, so now it's easier to see that top clip. Alright, so now what I want to do is just demonstrate the fundamentals of how an animation works in Final Cut Pro, and so we're going to set our first keyframes. The way this works is I'm going to start by selecting the top clip because this is the one that I'm going to animate. So I'll make sure it's selected. And I'm seeing the parameters for it up here in the inspector, you can verify that. It's called "laugh", that's the name of the clip. And you can see it's called laugh here as well. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to move the playhead to the very beginning of the project to the very first frame. With the playhead right there, what I'll do is I'll come up here to the inspector, I'm going to click and drag on the x value here, I'm just going to click it once to add a keyframe. And if I move away, you can see there's a little yellow diamond there, that yellow diamond lets me know that on that frame, there is a keyframe. So that's at the very beginning of the project. Now let's say I want to move the playhead forward one second. So I'll just move the playhead to the one second mark like that. And let's say at that point, I want to have the video beyond the right side of the frame. So all I have to do now is just click and drag on this x value to move it to the right. Because there's already a keyframe on that parameter earlier in the project, I don't have to manually set another keyframe right now, it'll automatically set that keyframe for me just by changing the value. Okay, so now the value here, I'm going to type in 300, just to give it a nice round number, the value there is 300. So at the very beginning of the project, it was around negative 300. Now it's around positive 300. And you can see there's a keyframe here on this frame as well. That's at the one second mark, you can see that in the time code here. So now what I have are two different keyframes one at the beginning in the project, and one one second in, and those two keyframes have different values. So now what happens is Final Cut Pro will do something called "interpolation". Interpolation is when it calculates the values in between the values that I set for the key frames, and that'll create the animation. So let's try it I'm going to move the playhead to the very beginning of the project. I'll hit the spacebar to play it back. And we should see an animation. Here we go. Sure enough over the course of about one second, that animation takes place, and you can see the clip moves over there. So that is the basic idea of how to create an animation, you add two key frames with different values at different positions. I'll move the playhead back to the beginning of the project. And once again, you can see up here at this position for the position parameter. And at this position for the play head in the timeline, I've got a keyframe. That's what that diamond is. You'll also notice that there's this little button here, and that moves you to the next keyframe. So that'll move the playhead in the project to the position of the next keyframe. So I'll just go ahead and click that. And you can see that now the playhead is at the one second mark where that keyframe is. And if I want to go back to the previous keyframe, I can click on this button. So you can go back and forth to move back and forth between the previous and next keyframes. If I go to the next keyframe here, and I want to remove this keyframe, let's say I want to delete this, that'll get rid of the animation, all I have to do is just hover and click on this diamond again, and you can see the animation is gone. And so what I'm going to do is hit Command Z to undo that deletion because I want to bring that back. So once again, I now have two keyframes on this parameter, I have one at the beginning of the project and one at the one second mark, and they have different values. And that's what creates the animation. But let's say I want to spread those key frames out, maybe I want to have one at the beginning of the project. But the second keyframe, I want it to be two seconds into the project instead of one second in. So that'll slow down the animation, it takes two seconds to move, instead of one second to move. Well in the inspector, we can't change the timing of a keyframe, we can't take the keyframe that's at one seconds, and move it to the two second mark. What I have to do instead is delete the one second key frame and then move the playhead to the two second mark set a new keyframe, change the value and that would add a new keyframe, that's a big hassle. It'd be a lot easier just to move the key frame and time will you can't do it in the inspector. But there is a tool where you can do that. It's a different interface. It's called the video animation editor. And there's more than one way to bring this up. But what I'll do is I'll come down here and select the clip. And then I'll go up to the clip menu. And then I'll go down to show video animation. Control V is the keyboard shortcut, it would do the same thing, but I'll just select it here in the menu. And that brings up this interface where I can see different parameters. And I'm going to go up to the top one where it says transform all and I don't want to see all of the transform parameters, I just want to see position because that's what I'm animating right now. So I'll click on the little pop up menu here, change it to position. And now you can see that I'm looking at transform position. And there is a diamond there at the very beginning of the project that represents the first key frame that's at the beginning of the project. And there's also a diamond here where the playhead is, and that represents the keyframe that's at the one second mark. And so let's say I want to take this one second keyframe and move it to later in the project, let's say to the two second mark. Now what I'll do is I'll start by moving my playhead to the two second position. And I'm verifying this with the timecode here. So the playhead is at two seconds now, now all I have to do is just move this keyframe in time. So I can click and drag it like this, and I'll drag it to the right. Now ignore the timecode that's in the tool tip there. That's a bug I'm experiencing in Final Cut Pro. It's just something that happens. Sometimes we experienced bugs. So ignore that timecode, and instead just pay attention to where I position the keyframe, I'm going to try to get it really close to where the playhead is. Maybe right around there. Okay, so now what I'll do is I'll move the playhead, and I'm going to use this previous keyframe. I'm going to click on that button. That will go to the previous keyframe. And I can see that it was very close to two seconds, I'm at two seconds and one frame. So now the keyframe at the beginning is still at the beginning of the project. And now the second keyframe's at two seconds. So we should have a slower animation, because now it's going to take two seconds to move that same distance across the screen. Let's take a look. I'm gonna move the playhead to the beginning and hit the spacebar to play it back. And sure enough, it's a slower animation. And let's say I want to go to three seconds, I'll move the plan to three seconds. And once again, I'm going to grab this key frame, I'll just move it in time, I'm gonna try to get it to pretty close to where the playhead is. And now it should be pretty close to three seconds. Let's take a look. I'll play it back. And now it's a much slower animation again, and I could speed it up, I'll just roughly move this to about the 15 frame mark somewhere around there and play back. And it's very fast, I'm going to command Z a couple times to go back to having that keyframe at the two second mark. So you can use the video animation editor here to change the timing of key frames. And you can use the inspector to change the value of the parameters at the position of the keyframes. And of course, you can bounce back and forth between the different keyframes using these next keyframe and previous keyframe buttons. And by the way, I can add another keyframe. For example, if I want to add a keyframe later in the project here on the transform position parameter, I can just option-click down here. I'll hold down Option on the keyboard. You can see a little plus diamond appears next to my mouse pointer. And I'll just click once and that adds a keyframe. In fact, to move the playhead to where that keyframe is, what I'll do is I'll just come up here and click on the next keyframe button. And now I could change the value, maybe I want to move it back to the left side of the frame again. So maybe something like this, let's take a look. I'll move the playhead back to the beginning, and now it should move to the right. And then it should move back to the left again. There we go. I can also delete that keyframe, just select it right here and hit Delete on the keyboard that gets rid of it. Now here I've just been animating the position to make it very clear what an animation looks like. But you can animate all kinds of different parameters. For example, if I wanted to animate the opacity of the video clip, I could make it fade up and then stay faded up, and then I can have it fade back down again. Let's take a look at how we could do that here in the video animation editor. You can see it says compositing, opacity. Opacity is how opaque or transparent the image is. Here I have a little disclosure button. If I click on that button, you can see it expands. And I have this line here. And if I want to add a keyframe somewhere, all I have to do is just option-click on it like this. So for example, if I want to option-click here. And then I could just click and drag the value down like that. So it'll start transparent, and then will fade back up and be fully opaque. And then I could come over here towards the end of the clip, option click to add another keyframe. And then I'll option Click here to add another one. And I'll drag that one down. And I can change the timing of this, move this a little bit further to the right and move this one over. For example, I can move that one over and move this over. So I'm adding the keyframes in the video animation editor. So now what will happen is it'll start transparent, it'll fade up, stay faded up all the way to this point, and then it'll fade down, to transparent again. Let's take a look. I'm going to play this back. Sure enough, it fades up. And then it's going to get to the end and then fade down. And it's transparent. Now that was a really difficult way to do this. Because when you have this disclosure button like this, you don't have to do this type of thing where you add all these keyframes. Instead, what I'm going to do is select this and hit Delete. In fact, I'm just going to click and drag to select all of these and hit Delete. And instead of adding all those key frames, what I'm going to do is use these little fader handles here, the fader handle's the same thing, I can just click and drag it like this. And now you can see it's going to fade up from transparent. And I could click and drag this one in like that. In fact, I'll make it to where the animations a little slower, takes a little bit longer. Maybe something like this, I'll just click and drag it over. Let's take a look. It's going to fade up and it'll stay faded up. And then it's going to fade back down again, like that. Now you only see these fader handles like this, you only see these handles when you're dealing with a parameter that has this disclosure button that you can expand like this. And by the way, while I'm here, I should also mention that when you have that disclosure button, that means that you can affect not just the timing of the keyframes in the video animation editor, but you can change the values of the keyframes. Anyway, I'll close down the video animation editor just by clicking on this little x here. And those are the basics of how keyframes and animation work in Final Cut Pro.
