How to Add & Adjust a Drop Shadow in Final Cut Pro 5

Video Transcript

"This is C.J. South representing expertvillage.com. In this clip I am going to teach you all adding and adjusting a drop shadow. So let's talk about adding drop shadows. So what is a drop shadow? A drop shadow is basically a shadow that is put behind your object to make it look more 3-dimensional. So if you come over here to the motion tab down to the drop shadow bar, just go ahead and twirl it down and then click the little check box next to it to bring it up. Now if you look over my canvas, you can see now there is a drop shadow behind this so it almost looks like it is suspended above a floor. Now to change the parameters of that is over in your motion; the motion tab here, the motion window. The offset is how far away it is from that picture. If I turn it to 32, now you can see that it is farther away from the picture and then bring it down lower. Once it hits 0 which right behind my picture and if you go negative it just goes to the other side of the picture. And you can change now the angle below that to which side it is coming from; basically where the light source is coming from. You can also change the color of the drop shadow. The standard is black but you know you can change that to green, blue or whatever you want. Softness is just how desolved it is; how soft it is. So if I turn that way up you can see how the edges get really feathered and then opacity is just that. It is opacity whether it is transparent or solid. All the way up makes it totally solid. All the way down makes it more transparent. You can mess around and adjust with it to kind of give yourself a nice little 3-dimensional look. "