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Avid and After Effects – does it even make sense?
Okay I had no idea where to post this. I was looking for an After Effects General discussion board but something like this does not exist so this seemed like the only place where I could post this.
I see a bunch of tiny agencies who do commercials that use Avid together with After Effects. In my personal opinion this doesn’t make any sense at all. WHY would you want to do this?
I am an Avid user – I work on projects together with multiple people. Avid is GREAT for working on stuff together with others. But what if you are just 1 or 2 editors who do a lot of GRAPHIC work. It’s great that I can work in After Effects, put that composition into a Premiere time line and keep on working in After Effects and Premiere will automatically update with those changes. In Avid it’s always: Export from AE, import into Avid…oh dang I need to change something so now I have to render it again… It just takes so much time and isn’t efficient in any way. So if you do news and big stories and what not I say AVID IS GREAT but for graphic heavy stuff in a combination together with AE I would say it doesn’t make much sense (especially if you are a tiny team) and Premiere would be a WAY BETTER OPTION.
What’s your take on this? Am I completely insane and ignorant towards Avid?
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7 Replies
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[Michael Paul] “I see a bunch of tiny agencies who do commercials that use Avid together with After Effects. In my personal opinion this doesn’t make any sense at all. WHY would you want to do this? “
Perhaps they have a bigger workflow they need to keep in mind? Going from Avid to some larger finishing system, like Quantel. They might have established workflows in place that work, so why change?
But I also know that agencies also put a lot of stock in PERCEPTION. Avid has a certain air of high professionalism to it’s name…and they put stock in that. Prestige. Just like they drive around in BMWs and Mercedes and Range Rovers…they go for the tools that impress clients more. Avid has a history of professionalism and high end work. I recall losing a job once because we were using FCP 6 and Motion…and they agency just didn’t see that as being a professional product. Especially since our bid on the work was lower than the competition. SO they went with the competition, and ended up spending more on overages.
Try to convince the powers that be about using Premiere, and how you can save time and how it can plug into the workflows they need. Because it IS far easier to work that way, as you said. It’s just up to convincing the bosses, who aren’t all that knowledgeable about post, and who go “Well, feature films are cut on Avid, so that’s a high end system, and our clients want high end, and we need to give them high end. And Premiere might not seem high end.” Perception…it’s huge in their world.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
And also, these agencies might have offline/online workflows that, as I stated, work with certain massive online machines…Scratch, Flame…or other.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Shane,
Great story. Reminds me of the time I did an edit back when I owned a Media 100 and at the end of the job the client refused to pay me the agreed upon rate because I didn’t cut on an AVID.
Didn’t mean to hijack the post.
Warren Eig
O 310-470-0905email: info@babyboompictures.com
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This was a very odd situation. I mean, we budgeted the cost, and then the head of the company doubled it. DOUBLE! I thought that was nuts. But she said that that’s how it’s done. But then the agency said that our rate was way too low, and that we must be doing something wrong…we couldn’t possibly do it for that cheap. So they went with another company that used Avid, had fancier offices, and overbid us by over 2x. And guess what? THEY WENT OVER BUDGET!!
I have a podcast about this…
https://lfhd.net/2016/06/07/the-edit-bay-episode-5-the-underbid/
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Michael Paul] “if you do news and big stories and what not I say AVID IS GREAT but for graphic heavy stuff in a combination together with AE I would say it doesn’t make much sense (especially if you are a tiny team) and Premiere would be a WAY BETTER OPTION.
“There are obviously ways in which that’s just true. Full stop. Ease of interaction with After Effects is a big part of the story of why Deadpool and Gone Girl were done with Premiere.
That said, are you using Automatic Duck to get between Media Composer and AE? By no means as nimble as the PPro-AE interaction, but it was designed by a Media Composer named Wes Plate who also used a lot of AE, and wanted a sequence-level interop. It was successful enough that it became its own business. Adobe actually hired the guy to help them with interop, and he just recently went back out on his own to develop his next generation toolset.
I can also testify that when I worked at Avid, I was aware of an astounding number of Avid shops using AE. Way more than half. Maybe 75%? Maybe more.
I don’t think that this is any way a negative reflection on Premiere, but rather an affirmation of the desirability of After Effects to Avid artists.
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Nope. I have never heard of Automatic Duck so thanks for telling me about it. It sounds interesting. I only know the terrible: Export as MOV from Avid- Import MOV into AE- “workflow”.
So how exactly does Automatic Duck work? -
Michael, you’ll find lots of tutorials and info online, but the idea is you export an AAF file from your sequence in Avid.
Then, in After Effects CS6 or later, choose File > Import > Pro Import After Effects and navigate to the AAF file you exported from your Avid.
Adjust settings as needed. That’s it. 🙂
Good luck!
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