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Possible to adjust the dimensions of the Ken Burns Crop tool's Start and End frames?

I'm 99% sure that I found a bug within the Ken Burns tool... or at least some kind of "unintentional behavior" of FCP when using the "Vertical" preset along with the "Smart Conform" tool. But... I may just be missing something.


One of my biggest tasks in FCP is to take a finished "news broadcast" that was shot and edited in 1920 x 1080p HD... and "re cut" it into several little <1 min. "shorts" for social media.


They way I handle this whole - landscape-to-vertical conversion involves using Apple's little "Smart Conform" tool when duplicating a project.


So...

  1. I take the standard 1920x1080 project
  2. Right click on it in the Browser, and select Duplicate Project As...
  3. I change the "Video" dropdown to the preset named "Vertical"... which just sets the project dimensions to the preset 720 x 1280.
  4. And I select the "Smart Conform" checkbox before pressing Ok.


Doing this seems to tell FCP to go through the whole project and try to scale, position, and nudge things so that they look as good as possible in this terrible vertical format.


Well... I noticed that any time I had the "Ken Burns" effect enabled on any clips when I'd perform this duplication process... if I went to edit the Ken Burns Start and End "frames"... they are all wonky. The Green "start" frame" is not even in the same aspect ratio as the end frame. So... the Ken Burns'iness takes on this strange Zoom/Reframing nature.


And you cannot seem to change the aspect ratio. You can move the Start Point around... stretch it... or shrink it... but it stays in this strange aspect ratio.


You CAN... however... remove the Ken Burns effect in the Inspector... then re-add it... and it works fine.


ALSO... this strange issue seems to be tied to the "Vertical" preset... more than the "Smart Conform" tool. Because... if, on step 3 (above), instead of selecting Vertical preset, you just select "Custom" and enter the same 720 x 1280 aspect ratio... this weird Ken Burns issue does not appear.


So... my question is two-fold.

  1. Unrelated to any "bug" or problem... does anyone know if it is possible to change the actual aspect ratio of the Ken Burns effect Start and/or End frames? Not - resize them... but change the actual HxW ratio?
  2. Has anyone else seen this kind of behavior... or any other strange weirdness... when going from a landscape project to a Vertical aspect ratio?

Posted on May 2, 2023 5:43 PM

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Posted on May 2, 2023 5:46 PM

The aspect ratio is based on the project. It can’t be changed. You have to rebuilt it when you change the project aspect ratio.

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Possible to adjust the dimensions of the Ken Burns Crop tool's Start and End frames?

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