Now that we have taken a tour of the Motion 5 workspace, let’s start a new project. We will be taking a closer look at a few of the menus and the Project Browser.

Once you open the Motion 5 software, you will see the Project Browser. You have the option to open a recent or existing Motion^R project, begin a new project from a file or start a new project from one of the templates in the Sidebar. There are several types of templates including lower third, menu and opener. You will notice that these templates have a 1920 x 1080 resolution and 1.00 aspect ratio.

1. Let’s start a new blank project by selecting Blank in the Sidebar (left panel). You will have five choices for a blank project, including Motion Project, Final Cut^R Effect, Final Cut Generator, Final Cut Transition and Final Cut Title.
   
   
2. Let’s choose the Motion Project option. Select this thumbnail in the Project Stack (center panel).
   
   In the Information Column (right panel), we will choose a preset for our project. This decision is based on the a few specs. The first is the type of video that you will be importing into your project and the second is the type of final project you will be exporting.
   
   We won’t be importing any video into our project but we do know that we will be sharing our project on YouTube^R. Two good choices for YouTube are Broadcast HD 720 and Broadcast HD 1080.
   
   
3. Let’s use the Broadcast HD 1080 preset. Select this from the menu.
   
   As you can see, this will give us a default frame rate of 29.97, a duration of 10 seconds, a 1.00 aspect ratio and a 1920 x 1080 resolution.
   
   
4. Click open to create a new project with these settings.
   
   Once the project is open into the workspace, the first thing I usually do is set the Zoom Level menu to Fit (Fit to Window). Although it makes the elements on the screen smaller than the 100% view, it gives you a good view of the overall composition.
   
   
5. From the Zoom Level menu at the upper right of the workspace, select the Fit option.
   
   You will notice that the Canvas is black, even though the background is transparent by default in a new Motion project. I’m a Photoshop user and I’ve gotten into the habit of starting my Photoshop projects with a transparent background. Photoshop represents a transparent layer with the familiar checkerboard pattern. We can set Motion to display the same pattern for a transparent background, as in Photoshop. We can make this adjustment in the Channels menu, which is just to the right of the Zoom Level menu.
   
   
6. From the Channels menu, switch the option from Color to Transparent to display the checkerboard pattern.
   
   

At this point, we are ready to start adding video, audio and graphics to our project.

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