Dex Craig
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful responses. I really do appreciate the extraordinarily civil tone this thread has taken!
I already am very familiar with Premiere Pro; I’ve just finished a 91 minute feature (edited from 21 hours of tape) in standard definition using Premiere Pro 1.5.1. The issue we ran into is that my partner does not want to use Microsoft products, so he’s a Mac man (though he prefers Linux, but the tools aren’t there within our budget for compositing and other effects).
(To answer Larry’s question about how well Premiere handled a feature, I’m quite pleased. We had some file organizational issues, but those were ours, not the softwares. I never had difficulty with Premiere handling the enormous amount of video, except when loading the project. The progress bar would zip across until it was about 9/10 of the way done, then stop and give no indication that the computer was even alive sometimes for as much as 5 minutes. Once the project was loaded, though, it ran very nicely. Oh, and we used an off-the-shelf HP machine with no specific video card. It’s a P4 with a gig of ram, but nothing special.)
So, for our complex, effects-laden sci-fi action adventure, we edited on Premiere and did much of the FX work in AE on the PC, but much of it was also done in AE on the Mac. Moving the AVIs from the PC to the Mac and getting AE to know what to do with them was a major work flow snag.
Given that my partner won’t move to a windows machine, I’m contemplating moving to FCP for the next project we do to improve the workflow. We’re planning on working in HDV, so I’m expecting that I’ll need to upgrade my hardware, regardless of which software package I use.
Everyone’s responses here have been very helpful. I’ll be playing with FCP (since my partner bought it on a lark the other day) and seeing if it’s something I can jump into easily.
And if anyone is interested, I’ll be happy to post my observations about the two packages once I feel I have enough basis to compare them.
Thanks, again!
– Dex
http://www.pandemoniummovie.com -
Thanks, everyone, for your thoughtful responses. Honestly, it’s not me who wants to make the transition from Premiere to FCP, but my partner whose steadfast dislike of Microsoft makes us have to travel back and forth between the two platforms, causing some trouble for us.
My research does indicate that Premiere and Final Cut are very similar, indeed, and since I use Premiere at work, knowing Final Cut on the side would be a benefit and make me more marketable in the future, I suppose.
If I do decide to make the jump, I’m sure I’ll be back asking all sorts of “obvious” questions.
Thanks, again!
– Dex
http://www.pandemoniummovie.com
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Hey, I’ve been using AfterEffects since it was made by Cosa and I still can’t quite wrap my brain around expressions. (Though they’re fairly new in the grand scheme of the program.) That said, my answer was to marry a professional programmer who can handle all my scripting needs.
Now, I can just sit here and say, “honey, I need a script to do a subtle edge blur in a chroma key. Can you whip one out for me?” Soon enough, there it is.
– Dex
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Hey, I’ve been using AfterEffects since it was made by Cosa and I still can’t quite wrap my brain around expressions. (Though they’re fairly new in the grand scheme of the program.) That said, my answer was to marry a professional programmer who can handle all my scripting needs.
Now, I can just sit here and say, “honey, I need a script to do a subtle edge blur in a chroma key. Can you whip one out for me?” Soon enough, there it is.
– Dex
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Thanks, Tim. I have the Cineform Codec that came with PP 1.5.1, and an Adobe person told me that it would work with PP2, so will that handle the 30P of the JVC system?
Thanks again,
Dex -
Check this link out. I haven’t used it, but Ayato recommends it.
– Dex
https://homepage.mac.com/knarf/MacOSaiX/
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We do a lot of Premiere files to Mac conversions at my shop and you’re right — Macs can read NTFS, but not write to it.
Our solution has been to network the machines together and just transfer the files across the network.
It works — slowly, sometimes, but it works.
– Dex
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Personal favorite was the Whopperettes — I just loved the surreal nature of the folks dressed up as condiments, leaping onto one another to create a giant Whopper. The kicker was the use of the phrase “the freaky king,” or “the creepy king” — I couldn’t quite make it out, but that plastic king character they use is, indeed, creepy.
Our “watercooler” conversations here at work talked about the FedEx and the insurance commercials (though none of us could remember what they were advertising — not a good sign for an advertisement!).
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Carl — you can use the page-up or page-down key to go the previous or next edit point on the timeline. Of course, if you have a bunch of chopped up audio clips or other overlaying video clips or audio clips, you’re going to be paging through each of them before you get to the top or bottom of the clip you’re using.
I’m glad to hear that PP2 has the home for the sequence feature, though. It was a bit off before to my taste.
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You might want to check the tutorials — Barend Oneweer (please forgive me if I’ve misspelled the name) did a great one on getting good keys from marginal material in AfterEffects.
One thing to remember when trying to get rid of the artifacts around an object you’re keying from DV footage is the matte choker. It’s simple to use and effective.
If you’re using AE Pro (6.5 or later), you have a key plug in called Keylight. It’s pretty amazing.
You’re right, it’s important to make sure the green screen (which generally seems to produce better results than bluescreen on footage shot in DV) is evenly lit. It’s also important to make sure the greenscreen isn’t significantly over-exposed in the frame; DV has an unfortunate habit of putting a blocky artifacted line around objects when there’s a sharp transition between overexposed (even mildly over exposed) areas and properly or slightly underexposed areas.
Good luck.