[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Robert,

Big difference from between comedy, to corporate and drama + is the actor/actress talking?

If the actor is good, you don’t need to do much.
If not, start editing in reaction shots of other actors, cover with B-Roll, or chop up multiple takes if you have that luxury – or re-frame the shot in the edit.

But a good actor should not need “improving”.
And, for those greatest of actors, less is more – where you might even be able cut some of the dialogue scenes.

Just an opinion.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Dylan,

Sorry, not sure as to why you need to recreate the spinning BBC Logo?
Neither do we know where you are stuck, unless you share the actual progress in your project.

More to the point, you have started several threads on the subject, and it may be better if you kept all your posts in one thread. Then, those who have ticked for replies, will be able to help you move forward.

This is the original thread:
https://creativecow.net/forums/thread/how-do-you-make-the-2011-bbc-north-west-tonight-3d-glossy-globe/#post-2441478

Do keep in mind that BBC has got some of the best people in the business making their idents, and some deep pockets too when it comes to launching new look for News.
To catch up with them, you need to be an expert user in the base tools like After Effects – I’m sure that others might disagree, but with knowing your tool-set, you also get more out of it when using it.

There are no apparent short-cuts, except for sweat, blood and persistence.

DON’T GIVE UP!

But no one here can help you in detail, unless we can see where you are actually stuck.

Atb
Mads

How do you make the 2011 BBC North West Tonight 3D Glossy Globe

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Marc,

Have you considered doing the batch convert in PhotoShop?
(I’m no expert on this, but could be a good place to start)

Adobe has instructions here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/using/processing-batch-files.html

Don’t know if this free exr plug-in will work for you, as there is only one way to find out 🙂
https://exchange.adobe.com/apps/cc/20897/exr-io

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Ernest,

I agree with you on the point that PC and Mac have similar capabilities, and the platform should not be a barrier (I run both, although not Mac Studio).

This 8K association article is from 2020, but the hardware that Chris choose, is very close to your set-up:
https://8kassociation.com/industry-info/8k-news/how-i-built-my-dream-8k-capable-video-editing-pc/

I have found some Raw Canon footage that I will download later and run a test on, just to get a feel for it.

“they sent me a link to a $8000 Mac Studio that there’s
no way I can afford”
I hear your pain, but have to respectfully disagree.
Keep in mind that your client is coming to you because they like your work.
Like you, their alternative is to go to a bigger set-up, which they are trying to avoid. Not least as the cost will be much, much higher.

The client can either do it themselves, which means more work for them.
Or they could either enter into a long-term contract with you where they pay enough money upfront, for you to invest in the Mac Studio (if that is what they want you to do?).

Or they could buy the box, and place it at your place – you’ll still need to pay your bills on electricity, and existing investment. So this arrangement won’t necessarily cost them less money, just they get a faster turn-around.

The other way is to reduce expectations to match budgets – like cutting the project in 2K or 4K, and then later do an on-line in 8K, if that is the end requirement?

“I haven’t tried resizing the footage, but wouldn’t that be just as slow as creating proxies (which are resized to 1080p for editing)?”

Adobe, codecs and other factors works in mysterious ways that we are not meant to understand, or even try to question.

Only way is to run tests, but if the Adobe media encoder can carry the meta-data across for time-code etc, then going to ProRes 2K or 4K might just be faster than watching paint dry on creating proxies inside Premiere Pro – there is sadly only one way to find out, which will take time and effort.

If your client have the money, you should stick to them. If not, you should listen to the old Bull in the COW-shed – or China Shop (I know Ron won’t mind me saying this, although I can hear the wall crashing behind me as the horns are primed for my backside):

https://creativecow.net/clients-or-grinders-the-choice-is-yours-understanding-the-three-market-types/

Don’t give up, unless you feel that this is not a proposition that you can make a living out of.

I went for a beer “exhibition” in South London yesterday, so anything that I have told you here should be taking with a pinch of salt, or 1/3 pint IPA…

Enjoy!

Atb

Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Petya,

Do you think it’s possible for artificial intelligence to COMPLETELY
replace motion designers. If so, how soon do you expect that to happen?

What a great question, thank you.

The short answer, is “No” 🙂

IMHO: Many of the suppliers out there suddenly offering A.I., has only removed “Machine Learning” from their product description, and suddenly replaced it with A.I. without adding “intelligence” to the product.
OK, that was harsh, but on point.

If you come from the point that A.I. is an actual being, will it ever have your understanding of creativity, aesthetics, functionality and messaging? (there is a likely to be a few more descriptive words to add to that list)
Of course it won’t, because just like humans, we, and the A.I. are all individuals.
But it will, much faster than a human, be able to learn your way of doing motion design, and replicate that look and feel.
Which by the way is only useful to the A.I. if someone can articulate what their desired end result is – therein you’ll find that understanding the needs of your client, often is more important than the execution of the job itself.

Have you ever tried to work as a supplier in a long chain where there is external PR, communications and marketing companies working with internal managers at large scale businesses? Often everybody has to make a change to your work, except, a month later, the Fortune 500 CEO gets to watch the “community version” of your work, and their final changes takes it back to be exactly like the first version you delivered…

Keep in mind that most, if not all A.I. today, is “trained” using source of information that is only available on-line. If you take a specific point, space, location, in time, you may feel the rain, see an angle that has never been photographed, whilst having the smell of spring in the air (any of those words can be replaced. but you get the meaning). The A.I. can not generate that feeling or knowledge if it does not have it. The same goes for empathy, love, hate, compassion, anger – the “Machine Learning mechanism” can explain it, but can not feel it.

When all that is said, A.I. is undoubtedly a game changer to our industry, any industry, and if left unchecked it can wreak havoc.

But on the positive side, anyone working in Motion Design today are already using A.I. to make better and faster results in their work.
One example is Adobe Sensei, which are already speeding up how work is done in Creative Cloud products such as After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and so forth.
(https://www.adobe.com/uk/sensei/creative-cloud-artificial-intelligence.html)
Except, once you read the fine print, you might come to the conclusion that Adobe, which has got one of the largest ever set of data points ever collected, that this data is what goes into their Machine Learning. Because Adobe Sensei can not accurately tell whether it is the cat, or the dog, that you the designer want to remove from the picture. But once you tell it, it will do it much faster and neater, than how you would have done it previously.

If you look at history, these tools will be a game-changer to the industry. And you either have to keep on up-skilling, or be left behind.

One good example is from back in the day when large corporate presentations was done on DIA slide projectors. Where the slides was expensive and time-consuming to make, and the projectors took time and loads of effort to program – that whole industry got replaced by PowerPoint and video projection.
Back then, executive human “A.I.” clients in pursuit of cost savings, allowed themselves to be guided by the Comic Sans font, low resolution over the top bar-charts and family photos to make up for professional photographs. Soon they found professional designers who could deliver the job, better. Whilst also getting the message across to an audience otherwise bewildered.

The role of a good Motion Designer will always be in demand, but whether they will ever again create and use a new key-frame, is the big question?

Just an opinion 😀

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Ernest,

On paper, the Hardware all looks good what you are using.

However, 8K is a reasonable new format, and there is still a lot to be learned before it goes mainstream.

On the Hardware, my initial thoughts would be:
What HD/SSD drive set-up are you using?

Have you done a test using a Intel or similar high-end processor?
AMD is not using the same multi-threading, as Intel, which may cause the system to slow down.
IMPORTANT: As many will rightfully say, there should be no difference in PPro whether using Intel or AMD! However, once you hit 8K, there is every chance that there could be a subtle difference, that when compounded across larger files, could have a large impact.

Also, check the heat of our workstation, as if you are rendering for a week, you might be able to do a fry-up on the box itself, or at maybe find that slows it down too.

On the project management side:
Have you tried edit the 8K stream(s) as is, but reduced the play-back quality in the PPro viewer?

Again, back to your drive set-up, is there a bottle-neck related to where you store your footage and project data?
Your motherboard is only capable of doing soo much, before it generates a queue.
If you really want to work in proxies, could you get hold of a secondary workstation to do that, whilst your main PC is working for you (don’t know where you are based, but there are options to rent powerful machines for that purpose, or maybe use a virtual cloud solution – although the latter would need a very big data pipe).

Depending on your final delivery format, maybe it is much faster to “down-convert” your files to ProRes 4K, 2K or HD? And then insert and punch in on 8K clips where needed?

Don’t know whether any of the above helps you.
But hopefully it will help you speed up the process.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey John,

Yes, After Effects are as relevant as ever. Even if it i moving towards using Sensei A.I. and many NLE packages out there are catching up. You just don’t get the detailed access to compositing that After Effects can give you.

There are plenty of After Effects books out there, which are current, like the Adobe After Effects Classroom in a Book (2023 release) series. Which also comes with training projects and digital material.

http://www.Peachpit.com currently offers a 20% discount.
(They are part of Pearson, and also run the http://www.Adobepress.com website)

And, they have a slightly older book that might be of interest to your students:
Learn Adobe After Effects CC for Visual Effects and Motion Graphics.

One word of caution on buying Adobe digital books, including Classroom in a book on Amazon;
a few years back I found that digital versions was being “hacked” on Amazon, and sold as a cheaper version on Amazon, but with a “new” author” and NO access to the exercise files. Amazon didn’t care, and was unwilling to remove the books, hence they lost my custom.

An Amazon supervisor told me that they could not remove stolen goods, and it was the same for drxgs, guns and pictures of under age kids… 😱

Despite telling Amazon, Pearson and Adobe about this, you can still buy the pirated version of Adobe After Effects Classroom in a Book (2020 release) [Print Replica] Kindle Edition on Amazon UK. This is NOT a bargain. But what is worse, is that both the publisher and Adobe, are happy for this to continue – I’m guessing the more people that you can train on After Effects, the better, even if the author’s don’t get paid on sales.

Adding, I have since found that a movie made by a friend, had been “hacked” and put up on Amazon US website, away from UK.

Just saying when directing your students, do remind them that if it looks to good to be true, it is. And, that they too might want to make a living of their creativity, without other users facilitating the theft of it. 😉

That was my rant for today.

Hope that it was helpful.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey John,

I from time to time get that problem too.
Suspect that it might be a random bug, where Adobe can’t handle both showing video and scopes at the same time – might be the graphics card too that are playing up (I have an NVidia RTX).

Normally if I change the screen layout to one of the other set-ups, like Audio as an example, and then back to color, it seems to work.

Alternatively, shutting down and rebooting is another annoying option.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Nelson,

Brie (COW-BOSS) might be able to help you with locating the old .mov file.

If in motion, Motype 2 might be able to do the trick for you – currently on offer over at FX Factory:https://fxfactory.com/info/motype2/

Although, you may find a bigger selection of tools for FCPX that can do the job too.

Atb

Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Oliver,

Great run-through of NAB 2023, thank you.

Out of interest, has the NLE grown up to a point where it is no longer interesting?
Asking for a friend, obviously 😀

Atb
Mads