[Jason Milligan]

[Alejandro Benavente] “I might be mislead because my AE interface is in Spanish, but under Animation > Range Selector, the only properties showing up are Start, End, and Offset, all of them percentages… “

Sorry about that. It doesn’t appear under the dropdown for ‘range selector’ but right beneath the category.

Once you’ve added the ‘character offset’ animator, you should see:

Animator 1
Range Selector 1
Character Alignment [Left or Top]
Character Range [Preserve Case and Digits]
Character Offset

Change [Left or Top] to [Adjust Kerning]

Hopefully the Spanish interface isn’t too different.

[Jason Milligan]

[david bogie] “Jason, interesting idea, but how would that get adjusted? “

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the issue, but I am assuming that what the OP means by ‘character separation’ is kerning. If that’s the case, turning on ‘adjust kerning’ while using character offset will adjust the kerning on the fly filling in the problematic gaps between characters. The drawback will be that other characters will shift and not remain at the exact same coordinates. If that shifting is a problem, then my solution is no good.

[Jason Milligan]

Have you tried changing “character alignment” under the range selector to the value “adjust kerning”?

[Jason Milligan]

You can also try applying your stroke as a layer style instead of an effect.

[Jason Milligan]

You can import your Premiere timeline directly into AE.
No need to render out a separate file.

[Jason Milligan]

Have you tried feathering the mask?

[Jason Milligan]

I recommend researching “luma mattes.”

An approach (not the only approach):
Duplicate the footage.
(The lower copy should be made gray using whichever approach you prefer, the top copy full color)
Use a separate piece of video as a luma matte to transition the color in.
This matte can be hand-animated or you can use a piece of video such as the ink drops in Video Copilot’s Riot Gear collection.

[Jason Milligan]

Why not shoot both and see which works best for your particular situation?
You may even be able to use both.

[Jason Milligan]

Here is a popular way of doing this type of shot:

Shot 1) Character fires an arrow off camera
Shot 2) Comp shot of an arrow flying over a blurred background (Motion tile and directional blur can get you this effect)
Shot 3) Cut to victim reacting to being shot in the head (arrow is already attached as a prosthetic)

Shot 2 is the only one that would require AE VFX work.
You only need to show the arrow actually hitting the person in Shot 3 if you are doing it in slow-motion.

[Jason Milligan]

Have you tried adjusting the pen’s double-click sensitivity in the preferences?