How I Learned to Hate Scrolling Credits

One of the very last things to complete with Autumn Gem has been the final credits sequence. I’ve been struggling mightily over the past few weeks trying to get the credits to scroll properly without jerkiness or stuttering. I’ve read all of the forums and tried many of the tips and tricks people have suggested, including:

*Deflicker filter

*Motion blur

*Using Motion to animate the scrolling

*Third-party plugins

*Calculating optimal pixels per second for 30fps and 29.97fps frame rates

*Scrolling a giant, vertical graphic made in Photoshop instead of using Final Cut text generators

Despite my best efforts and hours of render time, the credits never scrolled properly on our MXO-powered 23-inch ADC broadcast monitor or when output to a progressive QuickTime movie. They might start out fine, but every few seconds, the screen would suddenly jerk up a few extra pixels, creating an uncomfortable stutter effect.

At this point, I’ve about given up, and that’s a good thing, because I came up with a simpler solution that looks just as good. Instead of scrolling a 10800-pixel tall Photoshop graphic over seventy-two seconds, we’re cross-dissolving eleven credit screens over that same time. This comes out to about 6 seconds per screen, which is more than enough time for our cast and crew to find themselves.

One day, I’ll figure out the magical formula to getting silky smooth scrolling credits. I’ll leave that task, however, for the next film!