credits on end of movie best way?

Just a funny story here: I was on a film fest panel once and saw a short which had only one actor, a teen-aged boy who gradually became aware of some horror in the apartment just above his own.

There was a tracking shot of the boy walking down the hall, and something about the uneven pace of the camera made me realize that the camera must have been sitting in a wagon which was tied to the boy's ankle, which was just out of frame.

It was actually a pretty well-made movie, but I was not at all surprised when the credits came up... and they read:

David Smith
Did
EVERYTHING

(David Smith is a made-up name -- I wish I could remember the real one because he's probably a big director now. Does anybody recognize this film?)

About credits: If yours is an esthetic question, then just look at some films you admire and pick a style.

If you're wondering whether to scroll the credits or just dissolve from one page to another, the latter is easier. If you scroll you run into various technical issues. Do a search on the COW about scrolling text -- there's lots of advice about that.

For rolling credits, I usually type everything out in Illustrator and animate one long vertical movement in After Effects (...with a tiny [.15-.25] Gaussian blur to soften the text).

But if you do it in FC, use the Boris Title 3D.
rafael

Tom,
I wanted to say that for static and animated titles (I haven't rried jet the Boris Text Crawl) Boris is the best option.
By the way in RIpple Training there is a tutorial about how to make a two-columns title crawl. Very easy and elegant:
"Creating scrolling titles in Final Cut Pro" (Creating Scrolling Text "Gutters" in Final Cut Pro). By Estelle MacDonald.
Cheers,
Rafael

http://www.amazon.com/Title-Design-Essentials-Film-Video/dp/0321445767?ie=U...

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: "For crying out loud, read the freakin' manual."