If you have worked with Photoshop a bit, you are probably familiar with Layer Styles.
If not they let you apply drop shadows, bevels, etc. to your text to stylize it and make it more readable.
You can also access them inside of After Effects. They do not live in the Effect Menu like standard effects, but are under the Layer Menu (or you can right click on a layer in the Timeline Panel and apply them there.)
Here is a good primer on using them.
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_keyframes/story/layer_styles_in_after_effects/
Though they aren’t Effects you can save them as an “Animation Preset”, so you can reuse them. (This is similar to favorites in FCP 7).
Select the Layer Styles and from the Animation Menu select “Save Animation Preset”. You can also apply presets from the Animation Menu or the Effects & Presets Panel.
Creating a Film Flash Transition with Fractal Noise
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This morning I was prepping for the Advanced AE class I am teaching in Orlando tomorrow.
Part of the class is looking at commonly used effects, and I was setting up some film light leak transition projects. (get them here)
I then was digging through Ae stuff I had, and found John Dickinson’s “Basic Fractal Loop”Tutorial“. (he has great tips and products at http://www.motionworks.com.au/.)
I had a thought and was curious if I could make a film flash effect using fractal noise in a composite mode like add or screen?
So if you don’t have a film flash at your disposal, or you just like “making your own”, this should work.
I used CC Toner to provide the color, and key framed the Fractal Noise settings.
I have saved the settings as an Animation Preset that you can apply to a solid.
So I tried a version w fractal noise .
and one w Film_Burn_1080_1
Premiere Pro – Customizing the keyboard (CS 5.5)
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****I have some other related posts/tutorials here.
http://www.claygasbury.com/2011/07/10-knew-time-opened-premiere-pro/
http://www.claygasbury.com/2011/06/premiere-pro-cs-55-creating-custom-keyboard-layout/
Customizing your keyboard is a personal thing.
Some people are adamant about working with the “Premiere Pro defaults”, and others heavily customize the keyboard.
There is no wrong or right, so pick what works for you. Here is a link to the adobe site on keyboard shortcuts that is worth a read.
Here is a video on moving your settings from one machine to another.
Some of my shortcuts remove an existing shortcut. Remember that soon as you make a change to the keyboard, it changes to custom, so you can’t mess up the original Premiere, FCP, & Avid shortcuts.
I have been using Photoshop & AE since the mid 90′s so I like to use shortcuts from them when possible.
I have been using FCP since 1999 so there is certain ones that are etched into memory, and I keep them.
Then there are some default Premiere shortcuts I prefer and I use them also.
I start with the FCP 7 shortcuts. (Mac-Premiere Pro>Keyboard Shortcuts, PC-Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts)
I like that as soon as you pick Final Cut Pro 7, you now have a shortcut for “Keyboard Shortcuts (Option + H)
1) Change mark clip to X, Option + X is already mapped to Clear Clip. (Clear In & Out)
2) Add shortcuts for Add/Delete Tracks. Add Tracks – Command + T, Delete Tracks, Option + T
3) Change the Selection Tool to V (shortcut for Adobe Apps), and you do this from picking Tools in the Shortcut Window.
4) Change Zoom In/Out back to the Adobe defaults of -,=
5) I use Bridge a bit to organize and find clips, so I add Control + B for “Browse in Bridge (select the clip first in the Project for this to work).
6) I do most of my audio clean up in Audition, so I map ”Edit in Adobe Audition-Clip” Ctrl+A, and sequence to Ctrl+Shift+A.
7) I do most of my text work in AE and send clips over to use filters not available in Premiere often, so I map ”Replace with After Effects Composition” to Ctrl+E, & “New After Effects Composition” to Ctrl+Shift+E.
8 Change Video Transition to “Cmd + D, Audio Transition to “Opt+Cmd+D”, and “Default Transition to Selection” ”Shift+Cmd+D”
9) Add “Render Effects in Work Area” (Shift + R) , and change Work Area shortcuts to B & N (same as After Effects.)
10) I change snapping to S, which conflicts with the Slip Tool, but I Slip using the keyboard or in the Source window.
11) Play Around is \ and map Play In to Out to Shift + \
Next week I will look at using third party plugins for color correction and creating Looks.
In After Effects CS 5.5, a couple of the shortcuts won’t work as AE is using system shortcuts by default.
Go to Preferences >General and uncheck “Use System Shortcut Keys”. (thanks to John at Motionworks for this).
If you are using scripts (aescripts.com) check “Allow Scripts”. Scripts are similar to plugins that they “extend” what you can do in AE.
A popular one is BG Renderer (Render in the background while you can continue working in After Effects) which for $10 is a no brainer. (They tend to be cheap or free, unlike most plugins.)
In Premiere Pro, the F key shortcuts won’t work by default. That is an issue for me as I use F9 & F10 for Insert & Overwrite.
To change this go to System Preferences>Keyboard, and check “Use all F1, F2″ box.(or you will play the next song in iTunes in 10.7)
Launching Premiere Pro vs FCP 7
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When you launch Premiere Pro for the first time (or if you deleted your preferences), you see the image above.
Sidenote – To delete your preferences, hold down Command + Option + Shift when you launch the app. (You will not see a dialogue box like you do when you delete preferences for AE & photoshop.)
Open an existing project or click on New Project. Starting a new project brings you to the New Project window, with General & Scratch Disk tabs.
Coming from FCP 7, I found this awkward at first. Name your Project and decide where you want it to live.
The difference with Premiere Pro is that the default location of the Scratch Disk (where you store your media) follows where you saved your project.
Go to the Scratch Disk tab and make sure your media is not going to your boot drive. (It should be on a drive other than you system drive).
Here is a detailed guide to where to save your Projects & Media from an adobe forum.
When you click OK in either the General or Scratch Disk tabs, you get three more tabs.
Basically Premiere Pro asks you to make decisions up front that you would do in Preferences in FCP.
You can pick a preset to start, create your own custom preset, or click cancel to close the dialogue and open Premiere Pro deal and with the specifics later.
For the projects I shoot with Canon DLSR’s, I create a custom preset with 4 additonal mono tracks.
Worth noting is that most of the Presets have only stereo tracks, so if you don’t make a custom one and you need mono tracks they will only appear when you put mono audio into a sequence.
Once you are in Premiere Pro, you can go to Project>Project Settings>Scratch Disk to change your scratch disk. You can also add/delete tracks from the sequence Menu. I map these to the shortcut keys Control + T (add) & Option + T (delete).
Like FCP, it assumes you are going to go into Preferences and setup how you like to work. In the General Tab, you specify your default transition lengths, and this took some getting used to for me. Also there is preroll/postroll which is important if you use “Play Around” (shortcut is backward slash) or “Play In to Out with Preroll/Postroll”. I also like to change the “Appearance of the interface to Darker, which you couldn’t do in FCP. Next week I’ll go into how and why I customize my keyboard shortcuts. There is also a video tutorial here.
Premiere Pro – Project Window Tips
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Here are 4 quicktips for working in the Project Window.
1. Finding a Sequence clip in the Project. Go to Premiere Pro>Keyboard Shortcuts to see the available shortcuts (Premiere Pro, Final Cut, Avid Media Composer).
Map Control + F to “reveal in Project” (I started with the FCP shortcuts and customized from there.)
Seect the clip in the sequence, then Control + F to reveal the clip in the Project.
Watch the video tutorial below for details.
2. Finding where and how many times a video clip has been used in a sequence.
If you select a clip in the project window, at the top of window to the right of the thumbnail viewer, you will see details about the clip, including how many times it has been used in a sequence.
If you click on the “clip usage” pulldown, select the instance of the clip you want to see and it will open that sequence if it is in multiple sequences. (This is a handy way to find clips imho, and I use it often)
3. Toggling the Thumbnail sizes in the Project window.
Shift + [ or ] bracket will toggle the sizes of the thumbnails in the Project Window.
For this to work in list view, you need to uncheck “off” for thumbnails. I prefer to work in list mode and have thumbnails turned on. If I am working with a client, I may use icon view as it can be easier to locate clips.
4. Change the Poster Frame (Identifying Frame)
Select the Clip in the Project, then go up to the video window at the top of the Project window. Play the clip with the play button or drag the slider bar to a new frame, and click the “camera icon”. You have changed the identifying frame for the thumbnail in the project.
Where does FCP 7 fit in with Production Premium?
By · CommentsI’ll admit it. I had a bad knee-jerk reaction and deleted FCP Studio from my machine.
I got over it, and reinstalled FCP 7. I’ll still use it when I need to move projects to Premiere, or if I want to use Plural Eyes to sync audio to my Canon 5D. (They don’t offer a crossgrade so using the FCP version for now).
If you want to move projects over from FCP 7, you need to save them as xml and then open this in Premiere Pro.
Adobe has a tutorial on the workflow here. (Note, update to 5.5.1 before you do this.)
There is also a great free script called “fcp to ae” from Popcorn Island for movingFCP projects to After Effects.(Like Automatic Duck, but without the steep price and tech support.)
Some may prefer to still use FCP 7 and then send the xml to AE with this script, and I don’t blame you. (if ain’t broke don’t fix it philosophy.) For me I am teaching Premiere instead of FCP these days so I don’t have a choice.
My Journey from Adobe to Apple and back again
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I started using Final Cut Pro V1 when I was working as a video editor for Weather.com.
We did the editing of news packages and repurposing of content for the website of The Weather Channel.
We used Premiere (I believe version 5.1) for our day to day editing, but when FCP 1 arrived we started using it to cut longer form pieces.
I had previous experience with Media Composer, & Media 100 from the 90′s when I taught at the Art Institute of Atlanta.
FCP had its issues being a version 1 software, but it was more stable than Premiere and a lot cheaper than Avid MC.
FCP evolved steadily, and I became a Certified FCP Trainer in 2001 while I was working as a QA tester for Apple.
Now with FCP Studio EOL, I felt I needed to learn FCP X or look at Premiere Pro or Media Composer.
I decided I didn’t want a “one app to rule them all” so I went with Adobe Production Premium. I am working with Media Composer enough to stay current with it so I can edit a freelance project if needed.
So as I transition I am going to blog about my experiences. I work as an Adobe Instructor (Premiere & After Effects) and a Freelance Shooter/Editor, so a bit of what I write about will come out of questions I get while teaching the software. Others will come from my own experience of learning how this new software thinks.
For years when I taught FCP I joked with the students that “It’s not about you, it’s about FCP”. What I meant by that is they needed to learn what the software was trying to do (the logic behind it). That is just as true for PP, so as I adapt to how it thinks I will share those experiences.
My new day to day software is Production Premium (which ‘ll refer to as PP), and I’ll be blogging about my transition to PP CS 5.5.
My wife & I also shoot with Canon DSLR’s, a Stealth HD cam (crash camera similar to GO Pro), and a Tascam Dr-100, so expect the occasional blog on that.
If you have questions/comments or want to see on a tutorial on specific task, let me know.
I don’t work for Adobe and this is not intended as a comprehensive training guide, just one editors transition to a new way of working.
If you are looking for comprehensive training I personally suggest Creative Cow & Video2Brain, and the book ‘An Editor’s guide to Premiere Pro”.
Cheers
Clay Asbury, Sept. 23, 2011
Filmmaking links on Delicious
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If you haven’t checked out Delicious, it a very useful social bookmarking site. I use it for training classes, as an easy and quick way to give clients links.
I update my links every 4 months or so.
Check them out and let me know what you think. http://www.delicious.com/klae
Creating a Track Matte in After Effects from clay asbury on Vimeo. You see Track Mattes about every night on TV commercials. You use the alpha channel of the text to cut a hole and reveal the video footage. In After Effects, the Text goes on top, with the video below it. The Alpha Matte goes on the video layer, not the text.
In Final Cut Pro the Video is on top, the Text on the bottom, and the Alpha Matte goes on the video layer.
After Effects Quick Tip- Navigating the Timeline
By · CommentsThis tip is aimed at nonlinear editors or those new to After Effects.
Several tips to hopefully make your time in AE less frustrating.
IMHO, it is important to remember with After Effects is that it thinks more like Photoshop inmotion than FCP, Premiere, or AVID.
Tips on how to navigate in AE for those use to working with editing programs
After Effects Quick Tip- Unsaved Changes
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Another workflow tip for those new or transitioning to After Effects.
The Asterisk beside the project name tells you that you have unsaved changes.
Not a particularly sexy tip, but helpful to know. This is one example of what I call “visual shorthand” in AE.
Premiere Pro – Using Replace Edit
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The Replace Edit is a powerful type of Edit, that uses the playheads instead of In & Outs in the Source Window.
It looks at the playhead in the Source window, and the playhead in the Program window to create the edit.
I use it often when I want a video clip to “happen” on a particular beat or sound.
In this tutorial I show how to use it along with match frame and useful keyboard shortcuts.
Using the Replace Edit w Match Frame in PP to make visuals line up with sounds.
After Effects QuickTip – Sequencing Layers
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You don’t want to have to do a lot of video editing in After Effects, but when you do sequence layers is a big help.
Sequencing Layers Automates the process of ordering clips and will add a transition between the clips.
Watch the video or read more from the source here.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7e8ba.html
I wrote a version of this for FCP 7 last year in 2 parts that is on the La FCP Users Group site.
(http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_10things_asbury.html)
http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_10_more_things_asbury.html
I also have a related article here on Premiere Pro. http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue67/EditSecret.html
AS FCP 7 is EOL and I am working mainly with Premiere Pro and Avid these days, I decided it was time for an update.
- Set your Project Location & Scratch Disk when you create a new Project.
By Default your Project and Media (Scratch Disk) are being saved to user/documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro. I save my media/projects to a Media Folder on my media drive. I put my Premiere Auto-Saves on my boot drive and back up the projects to Dropbox (free online storage of 2 GB) daily. You could also save your Projects to a separate location. Whatever you choose, back up your Projects. If you forget or need to change your scratch after launching the project, go to Project>Project Settings>Scratch Disk. Side Note – there is a great free piece of software that will help you with organization called Post Haste. http://conigs.com/posthaste/
2. Create your own Workspaces.
Create your own Workspace to work more efficiently. I suggest starting with the Workspaces that ship with Premiere Pro, and modifying those as needed.
3. Create your own Shortcuts, Be Fast & Focus on Editing and Not the Software.
I create custom shortcuts based on the FCP Keyboard Layout (Premiere Pro>Keyboard>Shortcuts). If your coming from AVID, start with the Media Composer Layout.
Watch this video on moving your shortcut settings around. (should be easier than this). http://tv.adobe.com/watch/switching-to-adobe-premiere-pro-cs5/shortcut-keys/
Related to #2, I make “New Workspace” Control + N to add a new workspace as needed.
4. X- Marks in & Out (think X marks the spot), This also shows you the length of the marked clip. (you’ll need to map this shortcut) Option + X clears the In & Out. If you have multiple tracks, you need to target the top track and untarget the bottom track.
5. Audio tracks are either Mono, Stereo, or Surround.
You Can’t drop a Mono clip on a Stereo or Surround Clip. This is a little odd if you are coming from other editing apps. You can set this when you create a new project (2nd dialogue box “New Sequence”)
To change tracks in an opened project, right click on the track and choose “add tracks”, and add the appropriate track type (plus you can delete and rename tracks here.) Their is also a Menu command (Sequences>Add/Delete Tracks.
6. Maximize window shortcut. Works instant Zoom In/Out
If you use AE you probably know this one. Put your cursor over the window you want to maximize and press tilde (below the escape key). Press it again and it reverts back. I use this constantly. (Shift + ~ will maximize the Panel that is selected, not where the cursor is)
7. Render Entire Work Area & Effects in Work Area.
The work area defines what clips/effects are rendered. Below are the FCP Shortcuts.
Render Entire Work Area – Command + R
Render Effects – Option + R
8. Show Audio Time Units when making an Audio Edit.
Helpful when looking at video frames don’t cut it. You can do this in the Source or Program Monitor. Go to the the pulldown menu and select “Show Audio Time Units”.
You can read more on this here.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS095FFA27-635F-4e73-B2F4-C22394290F8C.html
9 & 10. Using the Replace Edit w Match Frame to make visuals line up with sounds.
Say I have edited some video clips to a music track, but now I want to retime the edit (ex. I want to the sun to start rising on a specific sfx). With your CTI over the video clip in the sequence, press M (adobe shortcuts) or F (FCP Shortcuts) to Match Frame. This loads the clip in the Source window. In the Source window put your CTI on the video where you want the edit to start. (replace edit will ignore in and out in Source). In the Timeline put your CTI where you want the edit to happen.In the Timeline right click on the video clip and select “Replace with Clip>From Source Monitor , Match Frame. I map Control + R to Replace Edit as I do this a lot.
You can watch a video tutorial here.
Using the Replace Edit w Match Frame in PP to make visuals line up with sounds.
10 Premiere Pro CS5.5 Tips for Working Editors
By · Commentshttp://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue67/EditSecret.html
This is an article I wrote for the June issue of Micro Filmmaker.
I will be doing a follow up of 10 more tips this week.
Premiere Pro CS 5.5 – Automating audio keyframes.
By · CommentsA video tutorial on automating audio keyframes in Premiere Pro CS 5.5.
For those moving from FCP to Premiere Pro, and those new to PP.
Automating audio keyframes in Premiere Pro CS 5.5
Automating audio keyframes in Premiere Pro CS 5.5
10 Premiere Pro CS 5.5 Tips
By · CommentsCut Like A Pro: Premiere Pro CS5.5 Tips for Working Editors
Here is the link.
FCP Workflow Part 1
By · CommentsIn Part 1 we look at Browser Settings and Basic Editing.
Premiere Pro CS 5.5 – Creating a Custom Keyboard Layout
By · CommentsIn this Premiere Pro CS 5.5 tutorial, we look at customizing the keyboard shortcuts. We start with the Final Cut Pro shortcuts (Premiere Pro ships with Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Final Cut Pro shortcuts).
Note: Creating your own custom shortcuts doesn’t effect the shortcuts that ship with Premiere.