Came across a cool one in Final Cut Pro. It’s an “animated theme” where the shot starts as an inset on a book cover, and then zooms into the full video shot. A natural for “educational” intros. FCP comes with a number of built in video effects, audio effects, animated themes, etc. Then there’s third party plug ins available to add more of same. (plug ins are pricey)
#2John Griffith on 05 Jul 12
Should also mention there is a companion piece of software called Motion, that apple makes to integrate 3D space, animations, transitions and effects into FCP. Truly hairy set of parameters to understand/learn/master, but also comes with prefab templates one can use instead of building your own. Price is right @$50.
#3John Griffith on 05 Jul 12
Another powerful effect for our ed/training purposes is picture in picture. We can, in addition to using green screen to drop in a background, take a video shot, and drop in on top of or “into” another video shot. If you watched the second Higgs Bison clip by FermiLab, the “teacher” at one point has an image of Mr. Higgs show up to his right. The image is a still one, but it is “angled” to create a feeling of extra dimensions. Which is nice, but it could, if we used picture in picture, be a live video that is angled next to the teacher.
Hopefully this isn’t obscure. It is a way for me to make notes on what we might want to use in upcoming productions. But it is also a way for you to start thinking a bit outside the box in terms of how we might actually use the technology for various purposes, topics, and learning environments.