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Credits are the bane of my existence – OT rant
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As always, it’s interesting to see what other editors are interested in and what they need. I can now see why there is such a dearth of sophisticated Credit Roll software – nobody seems to want it but me.
Many here talk about building a graphic in Photoshop, AE or Motion and then using basic keyframe animation. This works perfectly as long as you don’t mind manually changing the color on 300 separate lines of Role Names when your client decides that he wants the roles to be in yellow and the names to be in white – yes, that’s better, but can you make the yellow a little more orange, that’s nice but can we make the names larger and change the roles to all caps – I just showed it to the Exec and we would like to see it in double columns, except for the Producer credits at the end, which we want centered but bigger – I just spoke to the AP and can you have the double columns be centered instead of flush and can we go back to all white …?
It might just be my Karma, but clients who send me formatted credit text usually want changes once they see it as a roll, often because there are too many credits and not enough time and once they see the strobing, or the motion blur to prevent the strobing, all the original formatting goes out the window.
I’ve looked at both AE scripts and Ripple tools and neither works for me – so I’ve gone back to CHV text tool which I can use as a Motion plug-in. It’s UI must be over 10 years old and it isn’t quite as flexible as I would like but it comes close – 9 different layouts that can be intermixed, each layout assigned by adding an embedded code in your text document that allows you to differentiate the different parts of your credits so that you can change the “roles” without affecting the “names.” It can handle up to 9 logos in the roll. Using word to do global search and replace based on looking for carriage returns makes locating and embedding the various codes much faster than anything you can do in AE, Photoshop, or Motion. Once the codes are embedded it’s child’s play in a Word doc to change them around, and even easier to alter font, color and positioning within Motion.
I guess it’s back to the future.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
Yes. InDesign has styles so “can you change all the Crew Names to all caps, make the special names Blue and make the spacing between lines a little bigger” should be possible with some twiddling of styles. The only problem is the initial setup of a document’s vertical size.
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sub-rant: Telepromoter software is the bane of my existence. Is there Mac-based teleprompter software that you actually like?
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Back in the day it was Prompt Dog and prompt puppy, but I haven’t looked at the newest stuff in a while.
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[nick ring] “Is there Mac-based teleprompter software that you actually like?”
I use “Telepromt+ 3” for iPhone, iPad and Watch. Brilliantly perfect solution. For me.
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
[nick ring] “sub-rant: Telepromoter software is the bane of my existence. Is there Mac-based teleprompter software that you actually like?”
On the Mac, ProPrompter. Smooth as buttah when scrolling. My biggest beef with prompting apps is smooth speed changes. I don’t want any bumps to distract the talent from the words, as usually my talent… isn’t… they’re C-suite execs. Then there are some apps that can’t even scroll smoothly – those just go right in the trash. Note: ProPrompter released version 5 some time back, and it was a horrible update to the supremely excellent, stick-a-fork-in-it done version 4.0.3. So I simply stick with 4.0.3. No idea if the devs “fixed” 5.x/6.x, as I’m totally happy w/ 4.0.3, so keep that in mind when testing/buying. They’ll send you 4.0.3 if needed (that’s what I insisted, lol).
On iOS, the app to use is iQue. This is our new go-to, as the screen is a glass-mirrored iPad, controlled remotely via iPhone. The key here is to use dual-screen output from the iPad; the Ipad screen for the talent, and Lightning->HDMI to an external monitor (TVLogic, SmallHD, etc) for operator view. Otherwise the operator needs to stand almost shoulder to shoulder with talent in order to see the screen. Awkward. iQue remote control is smooth and pretty fast to navigate (of course not as fast as a laptop). Editing text… meh… maybe better if you controlled with another iPad instead of an iPhone.
I feel your pain on prompter software, I’m pretty demanding on it, and the stuff above should make your headache go away.
“Constituo, ergo sum”
Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
CMX-Quantel-Avid-Premiere-FCPX-AFX-Crayola
“What a long strange trip it’s been….” -
Script-Q works for us. Not terribly sophisticated, but works.
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Brett Sherman
One Man Band (If it\’s video related I\’ll do it!)
I work for an institution that probably does not want to be associated with my babblings here. -
A trick I created years ago from the headache of doing credit scrolls yet making sure that several people (producers and editors) have access to the credits file on a shared network drive or server:
- Create a Text Edit document in custom HD size and length as needed.
- Type credits in with the size font you want, formatting and all. Editors, producers, or anyone else can contribute which is great because the non-editing staff that have credits information will not have FCP X or Motion
- Export the document as PDF (or PDF-X)
- Import the document into FCP X (or Motion if you prefer)
- Apply an invert filter to make the white background black and black text white
- Apply 0.2 Gaussian blur (if needed)
- Create your start and end scroll keyframes
Done
Duplicate text edit file for next project. Remove credits, change doc length. What nice is the original credits stay in a basic text document format that many computer apps can open, various people can access and is not walled off by Motion and or FCP X.
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