Posts made in October, 2011

Creating a Film Flash Transition with Fractal Noise

Posted by Clay Asbury on Oct 9, 2011 in After Effects | 0 comments

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.

fractal_transition.ffx

So I tried a version w fractal noise .

and one w Film_Burn_1080_1

Premiere Pro – Customizing the keyboard (CS 5.5)

Posted by Clay Asbury on Oct 2, 2011 in Premiere | 0 comments

****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.

Expected Behavior with Shortcuts in After Effects & Premiere Pro

Posted by Clay Asbury on Oct 2, 2011 in Final Cut Pro | 0 comments

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)