[John Cuevas]

I think the easiest way to do this would be in camera using a polarizng filter. Adjust the filter correctly should remove the reflection from the water.

[John Cuevas]

Or you might be referring to automatic duck. It’s a third party program that will allows you to export an OMF of your timeline. You then can import that OMF timeline into AE, it will use the digitized video as your source and will attempt to convert some of the effects you did on the AVID to comparable AE effects, ie dissolves, maybe a few more.

You still have to render out from the AE to get back in Avid, but it’s quite handy when you need to edit video but need to heavily composite it in AE.

[John Cuevas]

Or you might be referring to automatic duck. It’s a third party program that will allows you to export an OMF of your timeline. You then can import that OMF timeline into AE, it will use the digitized video as your source and will attempt to convert some of the effects you did on the AVID to comparable AE effects, ie dissolves, maybe a few more.

You still have to render out from the AE to get back in Avid, but it’s quite handy when you need to edit video but need to heavily composite it in AE.

[John Cuevas]

Not much, really. He can hit a resize on import, that will stretch and shrink it, unless you do a multiple of 720 x 486, it will distort.

Unless the client has access to AE, he’s going to have troubles with that animation. If you are unsure, make him a 720 x 486 lower field first .9 pixel animation.

[John Cuevas]

Sometime ago…when QT released a new version(7, I think), it stopped playing well with Avid and you get “unable to export” bin errors.

Avid has never fixed this as far as I know. The only work around I know is to have AE installed on the same machine and use a quicktime ref file or find an older version of quicktime.

If you google it, there are places that keep older versions of QT for download. Pretty sure you need a 6.0 version.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

I didn’t do the individual words, those are easily doable using the text animation properties. The general backgrounds, with seeming thousands of letters, I just played around with trapcodes particular and was able to easily replicate that look.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

I work with both avid and ae and excluding automatic duck, the best work flow is using a QT reference.

Personally I wouldn’t suggest exporting the entire video, but just the sections you are going to modify. Choose and highlight the areas you are going to graphic from the timeline, the from file and change to QT reference. Basically a QT reference is a map to your original source footage. Anything you’ve done in avid will be flattened and rendered, but you now using the highest level video possible.

In AE, import your the QT ref file. For some reason, AE never interprets my fields correctly on a avid qt ref file, so you will want to make sure they are lower first. Now you can drop it a comp and go to work.

For export I always use QT’s avid codec. Takes some work to find it, but it’s at avid.com. Do some searches over there for quicktime and codec, eventually you’ll find it. Render to the media settings of your footage on the avid, lower field, 2:1 1:1…whatever.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Why not use render out of AE too Avid’s qt codec? Saves time on importation.

[John Cuevas]

First off, your work looks very good, Kudos!

Spicing things up to look more “MTV” or “E” will always be limited somewhat by the subject matter. It’s easier to do fast cuts to music when your story is Paris Hilton visiting a fashion show compared to a story on Chinook choppers.

Also, keep in mind that as a one man band you can’t be everywhere shooting everything, while “E” can hire crews to shoot each segment.

So there are some limitations to what you have available even before you start, ie actual footage vs stock photos…

All that being said, couple of things you might want to consider. The first piece had quite a few photos, but they were all stactic. MC has the pan and zoom tool, just using that will add a bit more visual interest.

In a few of the pieces that had video, why not use the nat sound? It doesn’t need to be overpowering, but it will add some texture and feel to the segments.

I liked the use of graphics between the pieces. One thing you might consider, customizing some of the backgrounds used. As I watched the 2nd video, the bkg with the squares, I thought it might be cool if you put video/stills in those squares, matching the moves. It could be just generic army stills, or if you the time you could customize it per story. The latter option would take more time, but if you had AfterEffects, you could set the entire operation up once—then just replace the footage per story.

Not sure if it’s possible based on what I saw, but if you could incorporate people giving soundbites on location, that would add a bit more energy too. It looked like you were working with quite a bit of b-roll from a lot of different places, so not sure if that’s an option.

Overall I thought based on the material you did a very good job as you are delivering news, not NewsTainment. One thing I did years ago when I first started editing was to keep a notebook next to me as I watched television. If I saw something I liked I would sketch it quickly, make some notes and write down ideas of how I could incorpate what I saw into the work I was doing. Just keep watching things that you like and emulate the things you think will work for you.

Again, overall, I really liked what you produced. The host’s had good energy and were very positive, so that really helped keeping things moving. The segments weren’t too long, you told the stories succinctly and kept me interested and not bored.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Awesome news on the DVD. Did the tutorial then ran over to your site, started searching everywhere trying to find the DVD so I could get a copy. Took me a bit to figure out it wasn’t out yet, but I’m a bit slow, if I was smarter I’d be a producer instead of editor.

Salut.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net