Track Matte Key Work Around in Premiere Pro

Posted on February 26, 2013 by kesakalaonu

One of the things I love about editing is using transitions. Editing is much more than the bells and whistles you put into it, but when I have a cool transition that can give it additional production value, I can’t pass it up (side note: picking the perfect sound effects can also really add some spice to your transitions). One type of transition I enjoy using are the overlay transitions that require the Track Matte Key/Effect to use them. In Premiere Pro, there is a way to utilize the Track Matte Key to use those transitions but there is a catch. If the matte I use from transition ends, my clip disappears. For the longest time, I’ve been trying to understand how to work around that so I don’t have to take as many steps when using these transitions. Most of the time when people have demonstrated Track Matte transitions, they tell you to delete the effect on the second of your clip. Well, I’m going to show you a quick tip to avoid that on your next project by keeping the track matte on both portions.

Track Matte Key Work Around

In my timeline, I have 2 clips stacked on top of each other. Let’s apply the Track Matte Key to the clip on Track 2.

The following steps are important to ensure that you get the desired result. Place your transition matte on Track 3. Right click on the matte and select Enable to disable it. This is done just in case your matte is making it difficult to see you video clip.

Next, go to the out point of your transition matte. Make an edit at that point on your clip on Track 2.

Select the left portion of your clip. Go to the effect controls panel. Set the matte dropdown to Video 3 and Compositing using Matte Alpha or Luma.

Right click on your transition matte on Track 3. Select Enable to re-enable it.

Now when you play through timeline, you will see the transition occur. Once it gets past the point where the matte ends, your clip won’t disappear. The reason for this is because we never designated a video track for the right portion of clip to take a matte from. It will still have the effect but act like nothing has changed. This is a useful tip for the next you deal with Track Matte transitions in Premiere Pro.

There are many places where you can get overlay transitions that require the Track Matte Key for a great price. So the next time you are in Premiere Pro and want use one of them, utilize this technique to save you some time. It’s always better to work smarter, not harder.

I’m the NLE Ninja with AudioMicro asking you to stay creative.

Dispursing Ink Text Reveal

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Luqman Stagg

Today we’ll be going a little further into the potential of After Effects (still only scratching the surface). We’ll be using new techniques and effects like Track Matte’s and the use of plug-ins . For this tutorial, you’re going to need to use some third party software and resources. You’ll need:

Pre-keyed Ink dispersion (Food Coloring #1)

Twitch Plug-in from VideoCopilot

First, we’re going to make a new composition, about 11 seconds long with your preferred render settings. Create a white background followed by a black text layer or anything else you want to be revealed by the ink. Import the food coloring, make sure it’s on top of the layer you want revealed. Select an alpha matte (under TrkMat tab) on the text/logo layer, then move the food coloring layer around so that it’s scale is about 25% bigger than the text. Be sure to have the black water line out of the mask. We want the ink reveal to last about 8 seconds, however after 8 seconds the whole text/logo hasn’t fully been revealed. This is where we use time remapping.

For 0-1 second it will be normal speed – we’ll then set a keyframe for the speed to increase up to 200-300%, another after 2 seconds, and one right after for normal speed. This needs to be repeated once more, but left at the increased speed. The last thing we’ll do for the first 8 second text layer is have the scale increase 5-10% from start to finish, and do the same for the ink layer.

The next layer is in our case my new wave rendition of the AudioMicro logo, but you can use any image or perhaps some text like ‘presents’ etc. The first thing I did here, was split the layer into two (one of 5 frames, and the other 2 seconds long): I wanted to disrupt the pattern, and create some discontinuity here, so for 5 brief frames I used VideoCopilot’s Twitch plug-in to create an RGB shift. I enabled blur, color, light and slide. The slide is what brings out the RGB split. For those of you who don’t have the plugin, it’s a lot more difficult and would take a long time to explain. What I suggest is to watch a tutorial on YouTube for creating an RGB shift, but as for the movement itself, enable motion blur and have the layer move quickly in different directions. After the twitch, it’s just 2 seconds of un-animated text, again to disrupt the pattern.

In the last 1.5 seconds, we have a new AM layer, which is completely unlike the ink AM logo. Again I used the twitch plug-in, and gradually increased the speed and amount of the twitch, in sync with the gradual gain in noise. I made the noise by adding a ramp and HLS Auto Noise from the effects tab to the original white layer. Set both of the ramp colors to white, make sure it’s set to radial and make sure the start of the ramp is in the centre. Now, as you can see from the link at the top, the white layer gradually creates a vignette at the end. All you have to do to achieve this effect is to keyframe the ramp colors from white at the beginning to grey at the end (darker grey for the end color). Next is the noise. Have all the parameters except speed start at 0% and finish at about 50%.

Last on our list, but probably most important to achieving this effect is the sound. I used a guitar sample, reversed the sound effect, and slowed the speed down using time stretch. Time stretch is located in the layer tab at the top, inside time. I stretched the time to 150%, as it went in sync with the twitches. If after you’ve modified you’re sound, and you still don’t have that edge to you’re audio, it’s always a good idea to throw in some effects like a reverb or a flange; remember, all your effects can be found by press CTRL and 5 (CMD and 5 for Macs).

That’s it from me today, I hope you all found this article helpful.

Until next time, Peace, Love and After effects.

Creating a Bin Structure Inside Your NLE

Posted on February 20, 2013 by kesakalaonu

Adobe Premier Pro Logo

One of the things I pride myself on having when I edit a project is a proper bin structure. When you are tasked with having a project that contains over 100 clips of footage, titles and miscellaneous assets such as photos, logos, motion graphics and more, your project browser can get very messy very quickly. Below is an example of a typical bin structure I utilize on projects. I add or delete bins based on my needs so this can change at a moment’s notice. I’m going to breakdown the significance of each bin and some of their sub bins so that you get an idea on how to structure your bin organization.

Audio

In this bin it’s obvious what’s placed here. I have sub bins for royalty free music tracks and sound effects. If I need an additional sub bin for something like voiceovers, I would create another bin and title that VO. If I want to get even more picky and specific, I would create sub bins for audio formats such as .mp3, .wav or .aiff. I would create sub bins within the music sub bin and sound effects sub bin for each of those formats. The benefit of doing that is to know what format I’m dealing instead of grouping everything into one bin and being none the wiser.

Images

In this bin is where I place client images, artwork, logos and more. In this particular example, I have sub bins for many of the popular image formats such as jpeg, png, tiff, psd. With images, it’s really easy for it to become messy and confusing if you just import all your images into one bin labeled images. This sub bin structure is meant to help sort and differentiate between what I have to work with. In most situations, I may not need all these sub bins but I keep them in case I’m given more client images down the line.

Mograph

This bin is meant to hold any motion graphics elements I plan to use or any exports that were created in After Effects. I may have custom motion graphics I created and plan to use and the last thing I want is it scattered all over the place. AE renders is a base folder I would use when starting a project. I could add sub bins within that labeled client custom mograph or segments to reflect graphics exported from After Effects that need specific bins. The other sub bin you see has the name of some popular royalty free graphics developers I use on regular basis. This sub bin has a tendency to grow or shrink depending on the need of the project. For most cases, I usually have at least 3-5 sub bins in this section just in case.

Footage

By far the most important bin to have in any structure. This is where my footage will go but I usually have several sub bins with the Master Clips bin. I like to label my footage bin from what card and shooter/camera they came from so I can reference them in case anything goes offline. There are obviously different ways to go about this but essentially all footage will go here. If I plan on using sub clips in the edit, I would create a folder for that and place them there. I tend to rarely use sub clips in most edits I do because I have a different method of sorting my footage.

Sequences

It is in this bin where I’m extra picky and cautiously organized. I keep versions of my main sequences as the project progresses usually appending them with something like this: Project Name_Main_01. With the underscores, I am able to go back to the first cut of my main sequence in case I need to start over or pick an arrangement that worked previously.

The selects reel bin is meant to have sequences of my footage grouped by the following criteria: b-roll and sound bites. What I do is go through my master clips and drop them in the appropriate titled sequence. For example, if I come across footage that has interviews or dialogue relevant to my edit, I would drop them in my sound bites sequence. That way I no longer need to use my project panel to search for specific clips. I can go through my selects sequences for either interviews or b-roll and grab what I need. I found this method very efficient and it also allows me to move faster.

Conclusion

This bin structure is a useful base for which I organize most of my projects. With it, I can add or delete bins if needed and keep everything as organized as possible. It’s good to have an evolving bin structure as one structure may not always be sufficient and you need to examine how to make it better for any specific project. Overall, utilize a bin structure to maintain your sanity and have peace of mind when you are editing. I’m the NLE Ninja with AudioMicro asking you to stay creative.

Multi-Cam In Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3

Posted on February 19, 2013 by admin

In today’s tutorial we bring you the magic of Multi-Cam in Final Cut Pro X. In this Final Cut Pro tutorial, Dan Allen of Dan Allen Films demonstrates and explains what Multi-Cam is and how it’s utilized in Final Cut Pro X. Keep in mind that this tutorial is for the newer 10.0.3+ updates so if you’re unable to do Multi-Cam you may want to update your Final Cut Pro X.

In the beginning Dan explains the basics of Multi-Cam, how to sync up the audio, and begin a Multi-Cam project in Final Cut Pro X. Multi-Cam in Final Cut Pro X can be easily accomplished using Final Cut Pro’s non-destructive flexible timeline as well as on the fly cutting as seen throughout the video.

Dan Allen ends the project with a short sample of how a quick Multi-Cam edit can turn out, literally within 10 minutes. With all these Multi-Cam talk, I’m sure you’re wondering what Multi-Cam is.

What is Multi Cam?

Multi-Cam is what it sounds like, a multi-camera set up at its core, with much more scalability in post production then a single camera edit. Multi-Cam is neither proprietary nor is it a standard meaning support for Multi-Cam is not available on every NLE but it comes with most professional NLE software.

Multi-Cam is also both a production technique as well as an editing technique so the lines are highly blurred.

The basis is that as long as you have one single audio track that is either synced up from a recorder or directly into the video, you can achieve Multi-Cam editing.

Videomaker.com has a great article about Multi-Cam editing and explains the entire production process from start to finish.

Multi-Cam essentially allows you to live cut multiple camera angles from different cameras just as if you were cutting a live show with a production switcher. There really is not a difference in technique for Multi-Cam editing in Final Cut Pro X and many other applications as the idea behind the technique is becoming more standard. Though most NLEs allow you to live cut and create multiple sequences with the cuts, Final Cut Pro X is unique in being the only true non-destructive editor as Dan Allen points out in his video.

So next time you’re shooting an event, music video, or interview consider the Multi-Cam approach to make things much easier in post production.

Having a good visual and audio cue is key in the process of shooting for a multi-cam edit as this aids the editor in cutting and syncing the pieces together.

Have any more tips on Multi-Cam or other multi-camera editing techniques in your favorite NLE? Are you a fan of Multi-Cam in Final Cut Pro X? Let us know in the comments below!

Be sure to follow Christian Hermida on Twitter and HermidaTech!

Using ClipWrap for Transcoding AVCHD footage

Posted on February 18, 2013 by kesakalaonu

photo 100808075042337476_zps335059a5.png

In this day and age of managing media, editors are given a variety of proprietary formats to work with. Everything from P2, H.264, XDCam, AVCHD and more. Most editing systems have ways of converting these types of footage into an editable format or editing it natively. Final Cut Pro 7 has a Log and Transfer function and can transcode most footage if you have installed certain plugins. Avid Media Composer/Symphony turns your footage into MXF files for editing. Premiere Pro takes your footage and allows you to cut natively.

Sometimes, you may have to use a third party application to make that happen. For those of you who deal with AVCHD on a regular basis, ClipWrap is a wonderful and inexpensive third party Mac application that does just that. It can convert your footage into Apple Pro Res, Avid DNxHD, HDV and more. In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps of converting MTS files from your camera to an editable format for Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer.

Converting your footage into Apple Pro Res or Avid DNxHD

If you plan to edit in Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer, here are the steps you would take to convert your MTS files into a Pro Res or DNxHD format.

First, make sure you have dumped all the contents of your SD card onto a drive suitable for editing. It’s good to have this copied in case anything should happen to your converted footage and you need to start from the beginning.

Open up the Clipwrap application. You will see a dialog window, which shows you the following: empty clip name pane, output format drop down menu, output frame rate and a destination drop down.

Set a destination for where for you want your converted footage to be by clicking on the Add New button.

Once you’ve set your destination folder, you can import your MTS files. Click on the plus button at the bottom of the Clip name panel. Navigate to the folder containing your MTS files. Highlight all of them and press Open. ClipWrap has the ability to do batch encoding quicker than what most NLEs do.

The next part involves setting up your editing codec. If you have the Pro Res and DNxHD codec’s installed on your system, you have the option of converting your footage to that. The other options that are available are DVCProHD, DV, HDV, Sony XDCam or don’t rewrap. If I were going to primarily edit in Final Cut Pro, I would choose one of the Pro Res codecs. If I were to edit in Avid Media Composer, I would chose either the DNxHD or Pro Res codec if I’m using Media Composer 6 and up. For this article, let’s set it to Pro Res LT.

Output frame rate gives you the option to change the frame rate of your footage. It’s completely optional for you to use this but use at your own risk. In most cases, it’s best to leave it untouched.

Once you’ve imported your files, set your destination folder and choose your codec, then press the Convert button.

ClipWrap will go through each of your MTS files one by one and convert them into your chosen codec. Once it’s done converting, you will hear a bell ring sounding off its completion. Now your footage is ready to edit in whichever NLE you choose.

I’m the NLE Ninja with AudioMicro asking you to stay creative.

Create Render Templates in After Effects

Posted on February 13, 2013 by kesakalaonu

FilmBurnScreenshot photo Filmburntext0-00-01-23_zps16a7c096.jpg

Have you ever been in a situation where you exported a file in a certain format and you forgot what settings you had? Here’s a tip for creating render queue presets in After Effects so you don’t run into that situation again as well when you have to do batch exports and save it to your drive.

I have a file I’m ready to export in my render queue. It’s set to render out in the default settings.

Let’s click on the output module drop down menu. Select Make Template.

Next, you have a dialog menu that gives you the option to name your template. I’m going to make a template for rendering a composition with transparency. Let’s name this PNG RGB+Alpha. After you do that, click on the Edit button to change the settings.

Since we are creating a PNG render template, we will keep the format at Quicktime Movie. Click on the Channels button and change it from RGB to RGB+Alpha. Keep Depth and Color at their default settings.

Click on the Format button. Here we can change the codec we are using from Animation to PNG by clicking on the drop down menu. After you’ve changed the codec, hit OK.

Now that we have our format settings the way we want them, hit OK to return to the previous menu. Hit OK again to create the template. Now, when you click on the Output Module drop down menu the new template will show up like in the image below.

We have this template available for use now whenever we need it. If we were to export multiple compositions and wanted to do a batch render, here’s what I would do. Highlight all the compositions in the render queue. Click on the Output Module drop down menu of one of the compositions. Select your render template and it will appear for all your compositions.

Another tip that is valuable to know is that you can save your render templates in case anything should happen such as reinstalling a program or trashing your preferences. Click on the output module drop down menu and select make template. In the dialog menu that pops up, click on the Save All button. Find a folder on a drive of your choice and save the .aom file.

If you ever run into the situations as mentioned above, you can load the templates you created and were saved in the .aom file.

Aside from creating render templates, AEScripts provides scripts to help with your workflow in After Effects and has some great scripts available to assist at a moment’s notice. Some of them are free and others you will have to pay for but believe me it is worth the investment if time is valuable to you.

I’m the NLE Ninja with AudioMicro asking you to stay creative. Thanks for reading.

Create an Event in Final Cut Pro X with Larry Jordan – RAID for Video Editing

Posted on February 5, 2013 by admin

In today’s post we take a look at creating an event in Final Cut Pro X with the master himself Larry Jordan. Larry has a plethora of tutorials and webinars at his website www.larryjordan.biz. Today we look at how to create and manage events in Final Cut Pro X as well as review a few tips on different hard drive configurations.

First of all, Larry begins with describing hard drive configurations in great detail, emphasizing the use of both SSD (Solid State Drives) and standard Hard Drives (IDE). In Larry’s set up he has a new iMac 2012 with a fusion drive for his main disk and a few external drives in a RAID configuration for video editing. This is important because it allows the operating system and Final Cut Pro to function snappy fast while allowing him larger storage options for his Final Cut Events. Keep in mind with Solid State drives that the price is definitely higher per gigabyte than standard magnetic hard drives, but you’ll benefit from insanely fast read/write speeds with no moving parts. Another quick note that isn’t mentioned here is that SSDs need not be very large for the Operating system and Applications. Something like a Crucial m4 128GB SSD will be more than enough for your Applications and OS.

Another thing to note on this importance is that with the new Final Cut Pro X, there are no scratch disks available. Which means no more dedicating separate drives to view your cached render files for a certain project or in this case an “event”. Instead you can only chose one hard drive initially to keep the event on. Larry explains further on how this works and how you can easily copy events to multiple drives, but this isn’t necessarily a permanent fix to the once very popular scratch disk option. This is what makes Final Cut Pro so dynamic yet revolutionary, in that Apple no longer believes you need multiple scratch disks but instead opt in for a RAID configuration.

The rest of tutorial explains a bit more about event management and how to manage and organize Final Cut Pro events accordingly.

Furthermore, going back to the idea of RAID storage poses an interesting challenge for today’s editor and the production environment.

RAID, which stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is not a new technology and has been around for years. However it wasn’t until recently with the introduction of the Drobo series of RAID enclosures for production that RAID has become a viable and economical choice for editing media. Whether you’re a photographer, music producer, or video editor, storage arrays like the Drobo and other RAID enclosures have made it possible to easily set up a RAID with various hard drives to use in a production environment.

I could go on and on about RAID storage and how great it is, but until you’ve tried it yourself and tested it to its limits, there’s no way of ensuring how productive one can be with RAID for projects and other productions. The true advantage here is getting the speed of multiple scratch disks, but in one centralized and quick solution. Prior to Final Cut Pro X you could’ve easily selected 10+ hard drives for caching and storing your render files. But now it’s a different ballgame and the times have changed. RAID offers you maximum performance and maximum redundancy if configured correctly in a RAID6 or RAID10 for your production environment. In the case of Final Cut X events, all your media and associate files are stored in that event folder on a single disk. If you have RAID0 for example (combining hard drive space + read speeds) you can expect an extremely snappy playback even at full resolution, provided your CPU and operating system are up to task as well. By using the power of RAID and Final Cut events, one can truly be a master of efficient post production.

So now that all that technical jumbo has been digested, I’m sure you’re wondering what hardware I’m using with all this RAID vs SSD vs Hard Drive stuff.

Here are my top recommendations that I’ve tried and tested myself:

Best Hard Drives for Video Editing and Production

Solid State Drive: Crucial m4 256GB SSD
Hard Drives in RAID: 2x 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green
Hyrbid Drive: Seagate Momentus 7200 RPM 750GB Hybrid Solid State Drive
RAID Enclosure: Mediasonic ProBox 4 Bay Hard Drive Enclosure with USB 3.0 and eSata

Well that’s all for today’s brief overview with Final Cut Pro X events and the technology behind hard drives in the production environment. If you’d like a more detailed overview of RAID for the production environment let me know in the comments below or tweet Christian Hermida @chermida on Twitter.

‘Retro’ Feel Film Burn Text

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Luqman Stagg

With video effects programs like Adobe After Effects becoming more and more popular, it’s no wonder there’s such a broad display of cool techniques and styles inspiring film makers and video editors out there.
In this article, the focus will be on how we can introduce a, ‘retro feel’ to a text intro. This tutorial will be fairly basic: we’ll animate the text using motion and flicker effects. We’ll also use a film burn accompanied by a film reel sound effect. Here’s what we’ll be creating today:

We’ll start off with the text layer. Open up a comp with your desired settings and create a new text layer. We’re going for a real vintage feel here so be mindful of what font you choose; Dafont has some amazing fonts. We’re going to add a glow to give a slightly blurry washed out look. Next, we’ll add a drop shadow. Turn the opacity up to 100% and choose your desired color – I went for pink. Turn the softness up to about 90%. There’s a whole manner of things we can do to further enhance the text, but we’ll leave that for another time and keep this sweet and simple.

Now we’ll get on to the animating. We’re going to have the text jolt up and down quickly into position, flicker a little and finally jolt out all whilst the scale slowly increases. We’ll get started off with the scale first then have a keyframe at the start for 90% scale and one at the end for 100%. The jolt in and out is just a simple quick shift in movement on the y axis. Put a keyframe at the start with the footage below the composition; 2 frames later have it really high in the composition, with just the bottom exposed. Do this once more, and then 3 frames after at the top have it in the center (the same applies the the jolt at the end). Now, this looks quite good but what makes it look so much better is the motion blur. Just click the two icons shown below. With the little flickering through the middle, it’s simply just quick keyframed changes in opacity.

For the film burn, we’ve got a lot of margin in terms of what we can use – just a simple YouTube search will give you a wide variety of free film burns to choose from. But we’re not limited to just film burns. Any sort of moving texture, camera bokeh, or anything else can be used. BE CREATIVE… Once you’ve got your footage in you might find it’s just not looking ‘RETRO’ enough. Head into the Noise and grain tab. Perhaps add some HLS grain, dust and scratches so it looks more worn out. You might also want to add some color correction. I find that the Tritone works best. I wanted a little yellowing of the highlights, the midtones to be brownish and the shadows a dark green at a 50% blend with the original. These sort of colors are great for correcting footage to feel more vintage.

Last on our list is SFX. Fitting in with the whole vintage theme, we get the sound of an old film reel being projected. These sound effects can be purchased from AudioMicro. In terms of sound treatment effects, there’s not much here. The one thing I did was apply a Parametric EQ. I keyframed it so that at the end when the text jolted out, the frequency increased.

That’s all from me! I hope you’ve gained insight into how I get that vintage feel, and have learned skills which can be applied elsewhere.