Credit roll for feature film

[EmilyGreenwood]

Hello

I need to create a credit roller for a feature film on Monday. I'm using the old Smoke 2013 sp4. I've never made one before (the guy who normally does it in After FX is on holiday!) Can anyone give me any pointers and tips for how to do it? Like how to decide on the speed for example. I have the Excel document for it already and it's a classic feature roller with logos on the end. I don't know the resolution or frame rate yet, but I expect it will be 2K and 23.98 or 24 fps.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I will also watch the 2013 ext.1 video on this subject, which Im sure will be helpful.

Thanks.

Emily

emily.greenwood@company3.com

[davidtindale · Accepted solution]

You can use the Smoke tools provided to make a nice roll.

Create a new layer in a progressive text effect with required duration, import your text, select all, add tabs as required, justify as necessary. Use styles to store font setups. Save at this point.

Go to Roll/Crawl, go to first frame, select Roll. Reposition the vertical slider that appears of RHS of the viewer, then back to the top to create first transform keyframe. Go to end, position slider again (typically all the way down) to create second transform keyframe.  

Check that the roll speed is set to 1X. At the bottom of screen is Best Roll Duration, which will tell you how far you are from a nice speed (for film, slower is better, you want an integer number of vertical pixels per frame).

You are best to adjust spacing/sizing to get close to the sweet spot for your roll (don't forget to reset the transform keyframes), when you get Best Roll Duration close to the duration you want it to be, you can use Fit Best Speed which will adjust leading (line space) globally to give you the best roll. Speeds above 1X will tend to strobe as progressive, you could also go to halfX by getting Best Roll Duration to be twice your target duration and manually editing the values.

You can import logos and roll them, but sizing and edging is tricky, I tend leave space for them and do them in Action - copy transformation curves from Text, paste into axis in Action or use an expression, build logos as required. Save before adding logos if you do.

[EmilyGreenwood]

Thanks so much David. I'll see how I get on tomorrow!

[AlanMaiden · Accepted solution]

Hi Emily (long time no see, hope you are well)

Are you doing this on 2013/14 or 15 (with BFX) If so I would do it all in BFX and load the logos into an action setup and use a static text node (scale its resolution to fit the whole roller on one page) and just use a global axis to do the move including the logos. Best speed is 4 line/pixels per frame for a progressive film roller (or a multiple of this eg. 8. 12. 16 etc) I usually insert keyrame on frame 1, jog on 1 frame and increment the Y poss by 4 and insert keyframe then go to animation curves and make everything linear. Hope this makes sense. If not let me know, I still have your number (unless you changed it recently) and I can call and go through it with you.

[EmilyGreenwood]

Hi Alan! Thanks for your message and yes my mobile's still the same 🙂

We're using very old 2013 sp.4...

I've made progress this morning - created the roller in Text - roll/crawl. Looks good so far.

My problem now is getting the logos in.

I've been passed notes by a wonderful colleague in LA who recommends loading logos in Text with the 'load logo' button, which I can't find.

I loaded my text file without problem, but can't find anywhere where I can load logos.

I've got tomorrow to finish this, so will email my colleague in LA to find out, but if anyone knows please do let me know 🙂

Otherwise I will add them in Action and track I guess...

[EmilyGreenwood]

Just wanted to conclude what I did on this.

It turns out there is no 'load logos' button in Smoke 2013 sp.4, so I went with Alan's suggestion of creating a static text file on a long canvas, which I took into BFX. I then loaded logos into Action and moved everything once text and logos were placed. Alan suggested moving the roller 4 points for each frame, which produced a nice smooth scroll. Thanks Alan 🙂

[EmilyGreenwood]

Hi Alan

Just wondering if you knew why moving the roller 4 pixels is the 'best speed'. Would be good to be able to explain the 'science' behind it to clients wanting a different speed in future! x