Beth Cataldo, February 20, 2007
Motion Menus


Usually when you're creating a motion menu, you'll composite a movie together with a Photoshop document in Final Cut Pro. In the case of of a scene selection menu, where you have small windows that show different scenes from the movie, you will usually use Photoshop to create that mask.

In the following procedure, you will first design the menu in Photoshop, then you will composite the menu together with the movies in Final Cut Pro. You will then output as MPEG2 and import into DVDSP. Precise steps follow below.

Create Photoshop Menu Doc
1. Go into Photoshop and create the PSD file.

2. Make sure you leave transparent "windows" by creating a mask wherever you want the video to show through.

3. You will have to do some math to calculate the correct place of your "windows" so that they are spaced evenly in the viewing window.

4. Use your guides to help place your graphics and "windows."

5. Don't forget to merge down any type effects so that they show up in Final Cut Pro.

6. It helps to use placeholder graphics to show which video is going to be placed in which window when you get into FCP.

7. Save the layered document -- do not flatten it.

Composite the PSD doc with movies in Final Cut Pro

1. Create new project in FCP

2. Set Scratch Disk

3. Import media for your menu (including PSD file with text)

Import>montanamenu.psd

Import>bear3.mov

Import>clouds.mov

Import>mountain.mov

Import>Track02.aiff

4. Click on the timeline and add three new video tracks so you'll have a total of 4 tracks. (You can also go to Sequence>Add track>3).

5. Place PSD file on top track. You will have to turn off some of the layers that I created to see the movies underneath. You'll need to double click the PSD layer to open up the PSD document and view all the layers. Extend the duration of the layers here by selecting the end of each clip and hitting the "E" command.

6. Edit and resize clips and then fit that into the empty "windows" in the PSD file.

  • Mark new in and out points.
  • Drag the clip directly into the timeline.
  • Open the clip from the Canvas by double-clicking it.
  • Go to Motion tab and scale to 25 percent.
  • Make sure the Image + Wireframe option is one and move the clip to appear in the window.
7. Repeat step 6 for each clip. Make sure your clips are the same length. If you need to trim them later, use the razor tool or create a new in- or out-point to make them all the same size.

8. Render your sequence to see what it looks like.

9. Note: You are creating the background motion graphic for the menu. You will bring in the overlay file for the buttons into DVDSP. You do not bring the overlay file for the buttons into Final Cut Pro. The background and the overlay file get put together in DVD Studio Pro.