Final Cut Friday: How to create reusable, customizable title cards using Motion 5 [Video]

Last week we discussed how to create one-off title cards for FCP X on a per-project basis. This week, we’ll show you how to create title cards that can be reused and customized — handy if you often use title cards in your projects.

By enlisting Motion 5, Apple’s $50 motion graphics application, you can shave off precious time from your editing sessions. Watch our brief hands-on video for more details.

Motion 5 has the ability to publish parameters directly to Final Cut Pro X, meaning that you can edit those parameters within Final Cut without a trip back to Motion.

In this tutorial, we show you how to create a basic title card within Motion, and publish the background color for easy editing within Final Cut Pro. The benefit of doing it this way is that you can infinitely reuse the title card, and set its default parameters to settings that you’re most comfortable with.

In other words, you can pre-set the duration of your card, its text and font characteristics, along with its background color. Yet, these can easily be changed within Final Cut Pro X at any time just by editing the title card within the Inspector.

How to create title cards with Motion 5

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Step 1: Launch Motion and create a new Final Cut Generator.

Step 2: Place a Color Solid generator on the timeline, and customize the default color to your liking via the Inspector.

Step 3: Click the down arrow to the right of the background color in the Inspector, and select Publish to make that parameter editable in Final Cut Pro X.

Step 4: Adjust the amount of frames to your liking in the timeline for the Color Solid generator.

Step 5: Add text to the project, and edit the text to your liking in the Inspector.

Step 6: Go to File → Save and assign your title card a template name and category. Click Publish to publish the generator to Final Cut Pro X.

Step 7: Open Final Cut Pro X, and open the Titles and Generators sidebar to find your custom title card. You can now insert this title card into your project, and edit its properties via the Inspector without venturing back into Apple Motion.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what’s possible with Motion, but it demonstrates why it’s such a valuable complement to Final Cut Pro X. What do you think?

Previous episodes:

• How to create basic title cards in FCP X
• 10 transition tips for Final Cut Pro X
• Using PaintX to quickly repair videos