Using BCC filters to generate a news show opener

In this exercise, we'll use Apple Final Cut Pro to generate an HD format show opener for a news program, such as we might see on the Larry King show, that incorporates a world map in the background, which has been treated with the BCC LED filter to appear as though it was made out of LED (light emitting diode) bulbs. Then we'll add some text as a foreground element, which we will generate using the built-in Boris Calligraphy text engine. We'll complete the effect by treating the text with two filters from the BCC Lights category - BCC Rays and BCC Light Sweep.

Start by creating an HD 1080i sequence in FCP.

Import the still image file world_map.tif into the project and drag it into the HD sequence timeline. Although the original image dimensions are approximately 1300 x 600, less than enough to completely fill an HD comp, we're going to let Final Cut Pro resize this image to fit. This happens automatically when media is dragged from the project window into the timeline as long as the "Automatically Resize Media" function is enabled in the FCP preferences.

Now let's go to the Final Cut Pro Effects browser and twirl down the BCC OpenGL category. This category is named "OpenGL" due to the fact that all filters contained within this category are hardware accelerated and perform all of their image processing on the video graphics card, bypassing the computers' main CPU, which dramatically speeds the filter processing. To apply the BCC LED filter to the map, drag the BCC LED filter onto the image clip in the timeline. With the filters' default settings the image looks like this:

Double click on the world map image clip in the timeline to bring this image into the source monitor, and click on the Final Cut Pro Effects tab (also in the Source Monitor window, to access the BCC LED filter parameters.

To start customizing the look of the effect for our needs, we'll change the values of the following parameters in the BCC LED filter:

LED Size = 4
LED Gap = 1
LED Shape = Circle
Flickering Speed = 15
Flickering Amount = 15

The world map image should now look more like the LED look that we are going for and should like this:

Now set the value of the Glow Size parameter to 12 and the value of the Glow Brightness parameter to 10. The bulbs now appear to glow and look more natural, and because of the values that we set in the LED Flickering Speed and Amount parameters, when the timeline is played you can observe that the LED bulbs are not static, but appear to generate a subtle flickering from frame to frame, much as one would expect to see in a real-world environment. The map image in your timeline should now look like the image below:

In the Motion Tab, change the scale parameter from 200 percent so that the image fits the window better. In the Larry King show, the camera is usually positioned so that the background image map is set at an angle, and to emulate that, we'll use the BCC DVE filter to pivot the map along it's Y axis. Go back to the Effects Tab in the Project Window and scroll down to the BCC Distortion and Perspective filter category. Twirl down this group and drag the BCC DVE filter onto the image in the timeline. The BCC DVE filter is now stacked on the clip with the BCC LED filter. In the Effects Tab of the Source Monitor Window, Unhide the Geometry group in the BCC DVE filter and set the Spin to a value of 50.

Now we have the off-axis look that we need and have completed the work to make the background image. The resulting image should look like this:

Now we're ready to add some text. We'll leave that for part two of this tutorial, which will be published in the next newsletter.

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