For many effects, you’ll want to know how to keyframe. While you can get by in Final Cut without keyframing, you’ll vastly expand what you can do and the effects you can achieve. This tutorial from Final Cut King is a quick overview of keyframes and specifically Basic Motion changes.

Watch the video tutorial here.

This is the simplest type of compositing, but it can be very powerful. It can be used to have the same person in the scene twice, have one person moving at a different speed than the other, or even put two bitter actors in the same scene without them having to interact. This tutorial from Final Cut King will show you how.

Watch the video tutorial here.

Apple has made the reflection look quite popular, and it’s actually not too hard to pull off in Final Cut. Final Cut King takes you through how to make that effect using a Gradient generator and a matte.

Watch the video tutorial here.

Depending on your editing style, you may end up with a timeline full of gaps. Clicking and dragging each individual clip to close those gaps is time consuming and potentially messy. Final Cut King has a tutorial on how to find and fix those gaps cleanly.

Watch the video tutorial here.

Sometimes it’s neccessary to bring attention to one person in a crowd of faces, perhaps in documentaries or family memory videos. Final Cut King shows one way of putting a spotlight on something. You’ll learn about masks along the way.

Watch the video tutorial here.

To create some quick animation to bring attention to one area, the Boris Vector Shape Generator may just do the trick. It’s a pretty flexible tool, as Final Cut King shows you how to create that animation and use the tool in this video tutorial.

Watch the video tutorial here.

If you’re looking for an interesting way to display several different tracks of video, perhaps for a more scrapbooky effect, this tutorial from Captain Mench may be what you’re looking for. You’ll learn a bit about basic motion parameters and mattes.

Watch the video tutorial here.