[Jonnie Lewis]

Hi Joseph,

Thanks a lot for this information – I’ll give it a good read over and if I have any questions I’ll post back up here.

I’m a little concerned that I’m out of my depth with this project as I’ve never produced a TV spot before (nor been involved in the production of one). Hopefully it’s not as complicated as a few other threads have made it out to be, but it certainly seems like it is…

Much appreciated,
Jonnie.

[Jonnie Lewis]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

If I’m going to deliver a file for use on the web to somebody who doesn’t have the latest version of Windows Media Player, is converting my .mp4/.mov to .wmv the only option?

I could export a .mpg and they’d be able to view it but they don’t seem to be as good for web-use.

Many thanks again,
Jonnie.

[Jonnie Lewis]

Great, thanks for the helpful tips. Really appreciated.

On another note, what’s the best way of ensuring “friendly” audio? By that I mean a level that ensures viewers don’t have to crank up their volume to be able to hear it properly. I’ve been adjusting the gain so that it’s about as loud as it can be without maxing out and becoming distorted, using levels to adjust little sections where the speakers voice becomes too loud.

Is that a good approach to audio or is there something else that I should keep in mind?

Thanks again.

[Jonnie Lewis]

Great, thanks.

What’s the difference between adjusting the gain and using the levels control in the effects pallet? Other than audio gain can be cranked up more obviously…

Cheers again.

[Jonnie Lewis]

Wish I could help, but I’m afraid I never came to a solution… I think I just put up with keeping AE running in the background until I finished the project.

Sorry I can’t be any more use!

[Jonnie Lewis]

Thanks, that does help.

One thing that constantly frustrates me is…

I tend to edit my video until I’m happy with it in Premiere before adding all my effects and colours from After Effects. Once I’ve completed all my colour correction I sometimes want to go back into Premiere and add cross-fades between two AE comps in my sequence.

If the clips hadn’t been replaced with AE comps, I’d be able to add cross-fades because Premiere recognises that there is still some footage at the ends and beginnings of the clips with which it can create the fade.

However once they’ve been replaced with AE comps, Premiere no longer sees any footage at the beginning and end of the clip. To get around this, I have to go into AE and extend the length of the comp – for the clip at the beginning of the fade this is fine, as I can just extend the footage and increase the length of the comp. However for the clip at the end of the fade, I have to shift the footage along the comp’s timeline so that there is a little more at the beginning for Premiere to use in the cross-fade.

Doing this however knocks the audio out of sync, as it’s still sitting in Premiere’s timeline, disconnected from the video footage. I guess I could create the cross-fades in After Effects, but that seems like a lot more work than just doing it in Premiere…

Thanks again,
Jonnie.

[Jonnie Lewis]

Glad I’m not the only one! I should have made it a bit more clear that when I referred to my folder structure it’s within Finder, not the Premiere Project panel.

It’s this Finder folder structure that I want Premiere to maintain when I save it to another location to back it up. I wasn’t aware that AE was capable of doing this actually but that’s good to know for projects that are made entirely in AE.

Cheers!

[Jonnie Lewis]

Great advice, thanks.

I have an extension cord for my shotgun mic, presumably if I place the microphone closer to the audio source I’ll be able to keep the gain slightly lower and also reduce the hiss?

Thanks again.

[Jonnie Lewis]

Thanks for the reply. Normally I set the data rate to 5MB/s, but in this instance I saw how long it was going to take to export so I thought I’d try speeding it up a bit.

I used Media Encoder instead of After Effects because I was under the impression that was the best way to export things. I thought it would be quicker, but actually it took much much longer, even with reduced settings.

[Jonnie Lewis]

Thanks – your English is very good!

Say a magazine wanted to print my photograph. Chances are they wouldn’t want to print it in its full 8×12 inch form. With re-sampling unchecked I could resize the image to be smaller, but the DPI would shoot way above 300. Does that matter, or in that case should I be resampling?

Thanks again!