Creative Titling with Final Cut Pro Gives you Full Story

Creative Titling with Final Cut Pro

Diannah Morgan
CMP Books, 2004
$45

"Creative Titling" isn't just about making creative titles with Final Cut Pro as you may think simply looking at the cover. Diannah Morgan starts out with a lesson in what titles actually are, what their names are, and what's characteristic about the different varieties, and she uses examples from recent movies and television with plenty of illustrations.

The bulk of the book deals with using FCP's titling tools as well as those of the Boris FX plugin and the powerful LiveType motion graphics tool (both of which are bundled with FCP and, if you're serious about your titling, you should install them). LiveType also includes the very exciting "live fonts" -- which is a collection of animated fonts which do things like explode, or write themselves. The layout of the book is friendly and colorful and the binding, with some intimidation, can be made to lay flat for easy reference while you're working. There is also enough white space on most of the pages adequate for taking a few notes.

Most chapters are step-by-step demonstrations of hypothetical titling situations that one might come across in the real world and each is generously illustrated with screen captures.

This book is not a reference manual, it's a series of lessons. If heretofore your titles have been white text on a black background you'll make it all back your first job after reading this. 3