FCPX Bullet Lists animated & timed with a single title! | BretFX Final Cut Pro X Tutorials & Plugins

[@Scottpie47]

I was racking my brains trying to think about how to create a bullet-list in Motion that would work in FCP but respect the timing issue - never even occurred to me to just leave that part to FCP and do it with Hold Frames. You're a genius! Thank you!

[@BretFX]

If you can figure it out, it would be the Holy Grail of plugins! You can set some sliders to delay actions, but not long enough to accommodate even the most normal of circumstances. HOLD FRAMES to the rescue. And easy too.

[@PaulCosch]

When I openend this video I was like "16 minutes to explain how to make a title??" - but I'm totally glad that I stuck around, because I learned so much. Hold frames on titles! I never would've thought about this. Thank you :)!

[@BretFX]

That's what the 2x playback setting is for! 😀 But honestly I think a lot of the back end was some self promotion and promotion for my buddy Deyson and his awesome plugin. Plus the little bonus exercise. It is KZbin after all! I'll try to make some of those fast 60 sec tutorials you see, but I just imagine all the questions I'd get about parts I forgot to cover! Thanks for your support. I'm glad you got something out of it.

[@invi_carlos]

This is soo helpful. Been using FCPX as a professional for two years, using plugins that never quite do what I need. Here it is. Thank you so much!

[@BretFX]

You're very welcome! But plugins aren't so bad either! 😀

[@mitch60mccoy]

I think your tutorials are amazing. Best FCPX teaching on KZbin! Thanks for sharing the knowledge!

[@BretFX]

Wow, thanks!

[@JimLangley1]

Thanks so much for the video Bret, you literally saved me hours! Great tutorial! I subbed.

[@BretFX]

Thanks for the support Jim! Glad I could be of service.

[@vincecomposer]

This is really smart thank you! I prefer using opacity to make it fade in. I also use this technique to do the trendy 'live captions' to emphasise a point in a talking head. So clean to be able to handle it all inside a single titles clip. Great info!

[@BretFX]

You are so welcome!

[@JoeCastellon]

This is precious information! I never new you could do SO MUCH with the Custom titles included in FCPX 😱

[@BretFX]

Awesome!

[@VivianEcclefield58]

Wish I had found this years ago!!! Thank u!

[@BretFX]

Glad it was helpful!

[@arieverett]

I was looking for exactly this! No stacking title clips with a stock final cut title. Ingenius! Thank you

[@BretFX]

Glad it was helpful! BTW though, there is an error in the recent iterations of the custom title. The build out / animate out function is incorrect. It will animate out almost right after the build in and it will animate out for the entire length you've stretched out the title. Not noticeable on a 4-5 sec title, but on a longer title it's obviously messed up. Might be kinda ok with this whole bullet list thing, because of the compound and hold frames. But beware. I've submitted bug report to Apple.

[@sohambasak6382]

Sweet! Just the think I was looking for! Thank you so very much :D

[@BretFX]

Glad I could help!

[@nowyouknowabout]

Absolutely terrific. Very clear, well-paced, easy to follow. Great video thanks!

[@BretFX]

You're very welcome!

[@gree7964]

This is the most useful text tutorial I've seen in a while. I've edited many corporate videos needing bullet lists in FCPX, and have only known used the stacked text method on a timeline. If I had only known about hold frames years ago, it would have sped up my edits. Thanks for sharing.

[@BretFX]

Thanks Jon! Be sure to check out my Animated Text without Plugins or Keyframes tutorial if you want to dig in deeper. This one is sort of a stand alone sequel of sorts showing the custom title in a more specific use case.

[@benbrodbeck3699]

@@BretFX I agree with Jon. Very cool. Now to figure out how to highlight a single talking point while the others are dimmed out.

[@benbrodbeck3699]

Hi Jon! Hope you're doing well!

[@benbrodbeck3699]

Well I figured that out pretty quickly. I already had a title that I published that allowed you to keyframe a cropping area for highlighting/dimming. All I had to do was put it in a compound clip, use hold frames cut it up and apply my dissolves. Thanks for helping me solve my problems @BretFX ! :)

[@BretFX]

@@benbrodbeck3699 Very handy those hold frames! I use them a lot for that same purpose. Templates and such that don't quite time the way I want, just drop them in a compound and your can use retiming controls and hold frames. The truly amazing thing that's hard to express, is that FCPX goes all the way back to the source and retimes the motion project, stretching and adding frames perfectly, not just adding a slomo effect to an already established clip.

[@ERDoctorZ]

Thanks for the tutorial. I'm an amateur, but learning FCPX and have had those multilevel titles in the past. This makes animated bullet lists so so so much simpler.

[@BretFX]

Thank you!

[@ManagementCourses]

Thank's Bret - I just used this technique on Deyson's template in a video about dealing with challenging meeting participants. Previously, I'd have used static bullets and a mask to reveal them, so this was a better solution. Don't worry though, I still use your Overshoot Text plugin in more videos than not! Cheers... Mike

[@BretFX]

Thanks Mike! It's a nice plugin isn't it? Thanks for watching, commenting, and of course subscribing! I'll just assume. 😀

[@MikeClayton]

@@BretFX Subscribed as me!

[@BretFX]

@@MikeClayton awesome! Thank you! Need subs, but also I'll reply again because KZbin gives better rankings to videos with lots of comments! 😀

[@MikeClayton]

@@BretFX I'm sure that's true 😉

[@navreetjosan158]

super helpful! thank you so much. was looking for this

[@BretFX]

You're welcome!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Finally got to watching this all the way through Bret! Really awesome work. You'll see me use it in my upcoming tutorial...

[@BretFX]

Thank you my friend!

[@EntrepreneurMommie]

thank you so much! I was able to create this compound! New subscriber over here 🙋

[@BretFX]

Welcome!

[@wanderlust101]

Very timely... we were working on several teaching scripts yesterday with bullet lists; you just saved me a bunch of time and frustration. Thanks, Bret!

[@BretFX]

That's awesome! I'm glad it helped. That was exactly the point. There are lots of benefits of this method but can't cover it all. I was going to mention that it's super easy to transition in and out of instead of the workarounds you have to go through when it's a bunch of layers. I'll try and keep 'em coming.

[@ConsciousnessWatch]

Superb video. So detailed and clear. Many thanks!

[@BretFX]

Glad it was helpful!

[@JohnKuehne_SF]

Wow! Excellent quick tutorial. I've watched a few videos on using the Custom Title and this is by far the best I've seen. Thumbs Up and subscribed. Keep up the great content and cool plug-ins.

[@BretFX]

John Kuehne I have one specifically on the custom title I released in July that goes much deeper. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZ2nkJSCnKqeZ7c

[@memo_sauceda]

I am so grateful for your tutorials Bret, thank you very much!

[@BretFX]

Thank YOU Memo!

[@paulgthompson]

This is brilliant in its simplicity. Just what I've been needing for some time now. Thank you!

[@BretFX]

You got it! Thanks Paul!

[@bernardkocioek685]

Exactly what I needed. Thank you.

[@BretFX]

You're welcome!

[@HorizonimagingCoUkPhotography]

REALLY useful tutorial, I never knew this functionality existed in FCPX 😎👍🏼 Thank you!

[@BretFX]

Glad you liked it!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

I always look forward to your tutorials Bret! Great stuff!

[@BretFX]

Thanks Ben! And I'm still ad-free! 😜 Everyone go check out Ben's channel right now! Wait, first watch all my vids, like and subscribe of course, then GO! 😃

[@nextchaptermexico3283]

Incredibly helpful. Thank you

[@BretFX]

So glad!

[@splberg1]

Awesome stuff Bret as usual very educational and easy to learn.

[@BretFX]

Thank you Mr. Spielberg. 😃

[@axlcinema]

Very good tutorial. Though it bugs me to no end that there isn't a good solution in FCP for multiline points.

[@BretFX]

I've been playing with something off and on. What would you like to see a solution do? The same limitations exist in any NLE I've seen. What I've been playing with has it's benefits, but it's limitations as well.

[@axlcinema]

@@BretFX Thanks for the response. The way I see it is there are three main problems with multiline points: 1. When you hit return on the keyboard the second line starts under the bullet point. So you have to manually line up the start of the second line with tabs or the spacebar to the beginning of first line of text. 2. The bullet point position should be editable. I like to center my bullets between my lines of text but I guess most people are happy with the bullet point at the beginning of line 1. 3. Currently, the easing options run from the beginning of the text to the end, instead of easing for each line. So if I have a paragraph of 5 points with an Ease In. The first point will be very smooth but point 5 will seem very linear. I’ve tried a few things in Motion unsuccessfully. Honestly, I don’t see this being resolved unless Apple add expressions or make major improvements to these apps. There are other issues I think plague Motion and FCP. Eg. I don’t know why, but when it comes to shapes in FCP, Apple placed more importance on using Scale over Size. So anyone who made Titles or Generators followed suit. There are a ton of titles out there and if you scale x on the rectangle behind the text you can see the edges blur because the developer didn’t use rectangle size. This is also the case for Apple’s own Shape generator in FCP 🤯 But yeah if someone developed a powerful bullet point generator I would certainly shell out for it.

[@TheWeekendPlanindia]

Thank you very much. Loved your format of explaining each action. Really appreciate this guidance.

[@BretFX]

You're very welcome!

[@CMessineo]

Excellent tip and tutorial!

[@BretFX]

Chris Messineo Thanks Chris!

[@tangerinedream07]

Do you have an updated version to this??

[@BretFX]

Of the tutorial? It should all still be applicable. Nothing has changed that I can think of regarding the techniques.

[@DCLHW11111]

Really???!! :) Thankyou!! After spending one day trying to export from Keynote but discovering the font quality was lousy Then another day experimenting with exporting from Blender to FCPX and considering learning Motion Just came across this A great help. Maybe FCPX could make a lot of people's lives easier by putting custom title in the top left so people learning how to use it do not trawl through an array of titles that do not offer the control over basic features that is needed... But thanks for offering this tutorial - appreciate it.

[@BretFX]

You're welcome! You can right click on the custom title in the browser and choose to make it the default title so you can just press ctrl T to add it to the timeline.

[@COOKTHRUTHEYEAR]

@@BretFX Wow...another great tip. Thanks!

[@bencorwin]

Awesome stuff!

[@BretFX]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@groovemessenger2407]

Lifesaver tutorial!

[@BretFX]

Awesome! Thanks Darren!

[@soniaho4500]

Thank you for this awesome video!!! Super helpful!!!

[@BretFX]

Glad it was helpful!

[@soniaho4500]

@@BretFX Yes, super helpful. I'm watching it over and over again to make sure I'm doing this correctly. I'm editing my video as I'm watching your lesson. :) Super cool!

[@aim.1]

Very helpful. Thank you!

[@BretFX]

Glad to help!

[@farooqbinadam]

This is awesome! Thanks!

[@HelpMeDIY]

Great tutorial, thanks! I don't have a static background like you do, so I was wondering if you have any tips on how to add like a 50% opaque area behind each line as they come up (or after they come up) to help the text stand out from the background? Something similar to what a drop shadow would do but more pronounced.

[@BretFX]

Just crop a solid to fit and change the opacity. Or use a rounded rectangle. But this is going to be a completely manual process. Any adjustment to the text would require manual adjustment to the shape size and / position.

[@HelpMeDIY]

@@BretFX thanks man. Finally another KZbinr that responds to all his comments like I do!

[@BretFX]

@@HelpMeDIY lol. With only 2k subs and a few comments here and there it's certainly possible!

[@Prof.Dr.MatthiasFervers]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

[@BretFX]

Thanks for watching!

[@crashcoursekitchen5675]

Excellent tutorial, you gained a sub

[@BretFX]

Awesome, thank you!

[@PatrickvanderStoop]

Thanks Bret for this Tut... nice to whats.

[@BretFX]

Thank you for the kind words!

[@chitrabhardwaj7554]

This was super useful.

[@BretFX]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AndrewBonicaRR]

Thanks Bret! I'm working on a 2h15m informational video for my channel and will be using this a lot! Thanks so much! Liked and subscribed! I'll share the finished product with you when it's done. 😊👍 Trying to figure out how to make a smoother fade out for the text by playing with the Out options now.

[@BretFX]

Andrew Bonica Awesome. Please do!

[@MeaColpa17]

😀 Fantastic! Thank you!! 😀

[@BretFX]

Thank you too!

[@teoavila.]

Very useful thanks

[@BretFX]

You're welcome. Glad you found it helpful!

[@six-star-hotels5698]

Thank you so much!! Great help. Subscribed...

[@BretFX]

Thanks for the sub!

[@1BagNomad]

Great tutorial.

[@BretFX]

Thank you!

[@COOKTHRUTHEYEAR]

Thank you for another great video! Is there a way to save the customized bullet list title that I've created for future use in other videos I make in FCPX?

[@BretFX]

Unfortunately not as easily as you'd like. You can save any effects or groups of effects you create as an "effects preset" via the "save effects preset" button at the bottom of the inspector for a clip, but as of yet we don't have a save title preset or save generator preset or save transition preset function. The common practice is to create a Library with timelines including your favorite titles and generators set the way you like and just copy and paste from that Library / Timeline(s) into the current Library and timeline you're working on.

[@COOKTHRUTHEYEAR]

@@BretFXOk, thank you so much!

[@jackstevensbass]

Love it!

[@BretFX]

Thanks!!

[@KurtPapke]

Excellent. The only thing that wasn't crystal clear was why the compound clip was required. Thanks!

[@BretFX]

Glad it was helpful! You can't add a hold frame to a title. So the only way to freeze (hold frame) in-between the lines animating in is to compound it first, where it is treated as it's own video clip, and hold frames can be added. Compounds are very useful for controlling speed and pauses of templates you might purchase as well. HTH!

[@markatyemen6947]

please how can I install the FCPX titles effects transition in Final Cut Pro

[@BretFX]

The technique is applicable to the custom title in FCPX, plugins from BretFX like Overshoot Text www.bretfx.com/product/overshoot-text/ , or 3rd party plugins like Bullet List Creator from Motion Master Templates. motionmastertemplates.com/bullet-list-creator/ but the majority of the tutorial just uses the built in "custom title" which is found in the Titles browser under Build In / Out category. I did an entire tutorial on the custom title here kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZ2nkJSCnKqeZ7c

[@sethmathison5516]

The hell are hold frames?!? The more you know...Subscribed!

[@BretFX]

Pinned! 😃 That's too funny. Honestly I didn't know they were a mystery! That's all we had way back in 2011 before they created a freeze frame proper. But hold frames are great for this stuff. Thanks Seth!

[@moonpost]

@@BretFX dang. all the years and never thought of using holds on titles. THANKS!

[@BretFX]

@@moonpost it's a nifty trick. And you can apply speed ramps or hold frames to any plugin/motion template if you compound it first. Very handy for those plugins that don't have speed controls, or insist on a build in, etc. Glad you liked it!

[@treyvollmerDP]

Good stuff. Subscribed!

[@BretFX]

Always appreciated! Thank you!

[@WriterZeye]

That was excellent, sir. Thank you very much. I also want to do this on the bottom with the star text/bullet list on its ear, and text slightly slanted by rotation so it can still be readable, but when I make adjustments, both either go vertical or horizontal when I need one of each. What's the remedy, if you don't mind?

[@BretFX]

You want different lines to look different or you want different lines to animate different? You can do the former in the title inspector just like you would a word processor. Although you can’t rotate or scale lines independently. Just don’t, color, size, etc.

[@ynsn3922]

Great video. How do you get the video play back on youtube to be segmented with each topic?

[@BretFX]

YANSEN Thank you! But I didn’t know anything was segmented. It’s all just recorded in QT, edited in FCPX and then uploaded. I didn’t do any special segmenting.

[@mitch60mccoy]

@@BretFX I think he means chapters (segments) on KZbin. In the description field, you type in the chapter timing: Example 00:00 Introduction 01:58 Next topic 03:24 Next topic

[@BretFX]

@@mitch60mccoy yes indeed. That question was 9 months ago and the segmenting that you now see in everyone's window on KZbin was new and being rolled out slowly only on certain videos. I think this was one. They do just base it off the chapters you put in the description. I've done that before they even started the visual segmenting. But true at the time he asked it was a brand new unannounced feature I don't think I knew what he was talking about. 😀

[@PixelatedDonut]

Thank you so much, this was really helpful. Is there a way to do it without the lines coming in from the side and instead have them dissolve or cut in in place?

[@BretFX]

Check out my animated text tutorial for more in depth on different animation styles including cut and fade and even an overshoot scale (which will require a couple keyframes)

[@michaeln6696]

So helpful

[@BretFX]

Glad it was helpful!

[@LanzaroteShowcase]

shift H Whaaaaat? I never knew about that, totally useful.

[@BretFX]

Hold frames are amazingly useful for sure.

[@bruce8209]

indeed, very useful! thanks.

[@BretFX]

Glad to hear that!

[@philsfilm]

Followed your cues. It worked really well. One question: how do you create accent aigu over the "e" in "cliches"/

[@BretFX]

philsfilm I think it’s option e and then e. I’d check but I’m on mobile at the moment.

[@KevTCC]

This is very helpful. I can't believe there isn't a way to publish the in-point of an item.

[@BretFX]

Maybe someday! You can set some delay offsets in Motion, but it's very limited, so you can't set the delays to 30 seconds or minutes. More like a few seconds, which really isn't too helpful with bullet points.

[@KevTCC]

@@BretFX having exhausted those options I searched and found your video which has solved my problem. New to Motion after a year of building 4-7 videos a week manually I am building titles and transitions and generators to make the workload far less. Thanks for the help!

[@tafahaat1724]

very nice video 😍

[@BretFX]

Thank you 🤗

[@benjamintbradley]

how do you slow this down

[@BretFX]

The custom title? There’s an in duration slider. And if you need it slower than that provides you could slow down the speed of the compound in between the hold frames. Speed is also a factor of distance over time. So for example you don’t need them to slide in from off screen. They could just slide (or scale or whatever) a smaller amount. As long as they fade in looks great.

[@MorganGrip]

Great tutorial! Thanks. /Morgan

[@BretFX]

Awesome! Thanks so much.

[@IHIngles]

Hi Bret. Thx for your nice videos. I m new in this and seem to be messing it up a bit. I uploaded my audio and had to cut it in 5 pieces thinking that this way it might recognize where to start each entrance if the bullet point. But for whatever the reason, my pieces of audio keep messing up moving up and down. Any idea why this is not working? Any help is so much appreciated!!

[@BretFX]

Hope you got it sorted!

[@oliverpayne8625]

Thank you!

[@BretFX]

You're welcome!

[@patrickalban]

Great tutorial! thank you! I have a question, after I created the presentation, made it in to a comp. clip, then ad the time, I must it of done something wrong... I would like to edit the animation time a little more but for some reason I just see the final product and can't get to the animation sequence so I can edit it a little more, could you help please? many thanks!

[@BretFX]

So if you want to edit the custom text and it's animation properties (speed/direction of the fly in, actual text, font, etc.) then you'd double click the compound to access the custom title and make those changes. But beware if you change the speed and timing, you'll have to go back and reset the speed controls in your timeline and redo the hold frames. If you just need to adjust the length of the hold frames in-between each bullet, all you need to do is select the compound and press cmd+r to bring up the speed controls and you can drag the hold frames shorter or longer. That help?

[@kmcdification]

I don't get this: i did this tutorial, I want to add these same titles to different projects. But when i change the text in the bulleted list in one project, it changes the text in ALL the projects where the effect is! How do I get it so that the text can be unique in each project, while not having to do all of the rest of the title build set-up again?

[@BretFX]

That's the nature of a compound clip. To break the connection, simply copy the clip in one project, paste it in the new project and then while it's still selected in the timeline choose Clip>Reference New Parent Clip. Then you can safely double click the compound (which will now have "copy" added to the name), and change the texts. HTH!

[@kmcdification]

Ah guess it's referencing the same file, so I have to duplicate the compound clip and then change the words, save as and rename. I think that'll do it... Thanks for the tutorial!

[@BretFX]

@@kmcdification you have to duplicate (or copy paste) and then do the "reference new parent clip" which will, replace the compound with a new compound in the browser right in place. You could go hunt down the compound in the browser, duplicate it and then edit it into your video but that's a lot more steps.

[@rghess1]

Tried your bullet list animated & timed tutorial. My finished bullet list looks great in the FCPX viewer. However, when I export the video to a file and view the file the timing of the animation is off. When I went back into FCP to look at the custom bullet-list clip, at first glance all of my hold frames were missing in the compound clip. However, by pressing Cmd-R brought back the timing controls and all the hold frames were in place. Don't know where to go from here. Like I said the animation and timing looks fine in the FCP viewer.

[@BretFX]

That's a new one! But FCP never fails to disappoint sometimes on oddities. A corrupt font can do some strange things, but never seen it adjust timing so that's probably not it. Really had to say on such a specific issue. But I've never seen nor heard of this happening. All I can suggest is the usual reboot, trash preferences, etc. Make sure you're exporting the right timeline and not a previous version. And yes, cmd R toggles the retiming controls visibility. I'm sorry it's not working for you. This is a great technique for any plugin that doesn't quite have the timing or speed control you need. Compound it and then retime, blade speed, hold frames, etc.

[@rghess1]

@@BretFX I figured it out. I went back and looked at your tutorial on Animate Text without Plugins or Keyframes. It was the In Opacity. I turned it down and all works fine. Thanks.

[@BretFX]

@@rghess1 awesome! Glad you got it sorted.

[@IHIngles]

I have also noticed that you sell effects and templates. Would it not be quicker to buy these from you and I just need to put in the text? How can we arrange this? Thx

[@BretFX]

I hope you did, and I hope they helped! Sorry catching up on comments!

[@homemovies751]

Great idea - who would have thought of that? LOL.

[@BretFX]

Just me apparently. 😀 Even made a product to do it better. Hope it helped!

[@SybrenArnoldus]

Very smart ;)

[@BretFX]

Thanks!

[@IHIngles]

I am trying to build up my english classes online and I started using FC but it was too much work until I came across your tutorial, but I am doing something wrong. Thx again

[@BretFX]

Sorry so late to reply. Hope you got it figured out.

[@abuhoorgold3357]

You are the best

[@BretFX]

Thank you!

[@0xArjay]

Yas!!!!

[@BretFX]

Woo hoo!

[@ArabAmericanChannel]

👍👍👍

[@BretFX]

Thank you again! 😎