Color Swiping for Cinematographers
The Color Swiping effect, what is it actually used for?
A professional colorist will use this technique to compare shot to shot allowing them to compare the colors between two different scenes in order to match the flow of the film. However, it seems this technique has taken a mainstream path into making a more cinematic video just by incorporating this technique. So it’s now trending to have the swiping motion that reveals the before and after of your footage.
When shooting in a log or RAW profile the result is a completely flat or color stripped image. After you color-grade these clips you can have a bright saturated beautiful image like the clips you will see across our channel. By using this swiping motion it quickly shows the before and after of applying your grade in one fluid motion in the same video. However, talk is cheap and words are very boring so let’s jump into how we accomplish this swiping technique in Final Cut Pro X.
Now that we’ve opened up FCPX we can go through how to get the cool color swipe effect that you might see in lots of YouTubers’ videos. It’s actually pretty easy and for the sake of instruction we’ve included RAW and Log footage that you can download to give this a try right from our digital library. Okay, you’ve got your clips downloaded and imported into FCPX. Step one is to take your RAW or LOG clip and put it on top of your final color-graded clip. If you’re looking to learn how to color-grade log footage, click here. If you need a step by step process for color-grading RAW footage, click here.
If you utilized FCPX’s color-grading tools and your clip is sitting on the timeline, simply duplicate it by copy and pasting or simply hold option and drag your clip up to duplicate it. Step two, let’s move the playback bar over the new clip to the position where you want it to start. Let’s say you chose halfway through the clip. What you want to do next is trim the front end of the clip until you hit that playback bar.
After you’ve done this, click on the transitions tab in FCPX (the double arrow on the far bottom right). Hit the search bar and type ‘wipe’. By dragging the wipe effect to the top clip, you will be able to add this transition quickly. Delete the second grey transition.
Pro Tip! If you right click on the WIPE you can choose MAKE DEFAULT which will hold this transition at the top of your transitions so you no longer have to take the time to type it in and search for it. This will save you time if you plan on using this technique in your videos often!
Now that we have added the wipe transition we will look for the option in your Indicator tool area (the little i at the top right) and choose the arrow next to EDGE TREATMENT. Drag the boarder all the way down. Guess what? You’ve just made a more apparent line by decreasing the amount of boarder and THAT’s what you’re looking for. Now you’ve completed this swiping effect, allowing you to see the top clip and the bottom clip transitioning at the point you’ve selected. Perfect! That’s it! To finalize the clip you can turn them into a compound clip by using hot keys option G, title it and there you go!
Let’s walk through that once more.
Copy the clip and drag it above while holding Option
Trim the front to where you want the transition to begin
Color-grade the top clip
Create the transition and adjust the boarder
Make a compound clip
If you’re still struggling with this, watch and follow along with our VIDEO.
