Create a flicker-less rolling credit
Not a lot of people really think about them, but opening and ending credits are incredibly important in a short or feature film. They play a crucial role in acknowledging and honoring the contributions of the numerous individuals who collaborate to create a cinematic masterpiece. They are not just a formality but serve several important purposes, contributing to the overall success and appreciation of a film.
Credits have various forms and formats. They can be an animation, displayed in cards but, the most common are the rolling credits. You might think: “Well, you just create an image with the credits, input two keyframes and it’s done — a simple roll down of an image”. It’s not exactly like that. Suppose the image (usually created in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop) does not move at an exact number of pixels per frame (for example, 2 or 4 pixels per frame). In that case, you will see a flickering effect: rapid and repeated changes in brightness or color that create a flashing or flickering appearance.
The only tested software that creates this animation without any flaws is DaVinci Resolve, using its feature: Fusion. But how do you do that?
Step 1: Add the image (.png or .tiff) created with the credits content (names and roles) to the Media Pool. These should be in alpha mode (i. e. transparent).
Step 2: Create a timeline with the final resolution and framerate.
Step 3: Make sure that Mismatched Resolution setting is set to “Center Crop with no resizing“ in Timeline settings. This way, regardless of video resolution, the image will maintain its original size.
If you don’t know how to do that, right-click on the timeline you are working on, on the Media Pool, and select Timeline Settings. Under Format, choose “Center Crop with no resizing“. Nonetheless, you might need to make some adjustments to the picture’s zoom, under inspector.
Step 4: Scroll the image to the point where you want it to start. If you desire to have a black screen and the credits appear from the bottom, on the right, go to Inspector > Transform > Position Y, and change the value until you see a blank screen and the image is pulled down.
Step 5: Open Fusion tab (at the bottom of the screen).
Step 6: In Fusion, right-click on the line connecting MedianIn1 and MediaIn2 and select: Add Tool > Transform > Transform.
Step 7: On the right side of the screen, under Inspector, open the Reference Size dropbox and opt-in on AutoResolution.
Step 8: Right-click on Center > Animate. It will enable the animation, visible through an orange dot that appears on the right side, on the Center line.
Step 9: Right-click on Center > Expression.
Step 10: Erase the placeholder expression and write the following one: Point(0.5,(time/Height)*x)
In this case, x is the number of pixels per frame (i.e. speed) you want the image to scroll down. It is usually between 2 and 4 (example: Point(0.5,(time/Height)*4))).
Point (x;y) refers to the element coordinates — not in pixels. To make the software understand the expression as pixel-related, we enabled Autoresolution, in step 7. Keeping the x = 0.5 (the default value), it will not move the image in the X-axis (horizontally).
Time is the element that the image scrolls down as time moves on and Height refers to the height of the credit’s image.
Step 11: Go back to Edit tab and adjust, in the timeline, the duration of the image so that it scrolls down completely. As said, you may adjust its starting point on the Inspector (right side), in the Edit tab.
And it’s done!!! 👏🎉
If you want to know how much time your opening and ending credits will have, according to the number of cards and height of your ending credits roll, please check our tool: Credits Duration Calculator.
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