Coming this fall … Adobe is going to release the next installment of its production suite, CS4. And after learning about some of the updated features, I have to tell you I’m quite excited. Here are some of the new or enhanced features I found most entertaining.

After Effects (AE), added several features making it even more user friendly while opening your creative genius with more tools. For instance you now have the ability to use adjustment layers like you do in Photoshop. Very nice! Also you can use the advanced clone tool to remove video blemished or add elements to your production. Adobe’s website mentioned filling a stadium of people which was fitting for DotLot and TBG as we just worked on the Madden ’09 rich media advertising. Here’s another great feature … import FLV files directly into AE. How many times have you wanted to edit or import a FLV into your production? There are so many other new and enhanced features that I implore you to look at. After Effects is an even more powerful than before.

Another Adobe tool we use often is Premiere. Here are some of the new / enhanced features YOU should be aware of: native tapeless workflow for RED, Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM, and AVCHD. This is an awesome timesaver for us and keeps the content in its truest form. Premiere added per-sequence settings to mix content with different editing and rendering setting for each sequence. It’s something we ALL have been waiting a long time for. You can now edit multiple clip’s effects, speed/duration and transitions, all in one instance, another great timesaver. Import FLVs, cool! Blu-ray authoring. Finally, here’s a rather interesting one, automatic transcription generation with speech-to-text analysis where Adobe uses a built-in speech-to-text analysis to create a XMP metadata which allows you to make corrections to transcription. You’ll just have to see for yourself.

This blog is not the place to review all the awesome new tools Adobe has updated and enhanced. But I will tell you that with all these new features, you will see Adobe gaining more ground in the post production world, especially in online videos. Now have fun and explore all that Adobe can offer your productions.

For a recent project, we were charged with producing a video that was going to be displayed on a plasma screen at a tradeshow booth and later in the company’s lobby. We knew we needed to produce the video presentation for 16:9, but we had many rounds of debate over which pixel aspect ratio to use and what our final delivery format needed to be. In order to find the answer we needed to take a step back and discuss what the difference is between a square and rectangular pixel in the first place.

Aspect ratio specifies the ratio of the width of a picture or pixel to its height. Photographic pixels are square with a pixel ratio of 1:1 which means that the width and height are equal, or square. NTSC TV uses a pixel aspect ratio of 0.9:1, which means that the height of each pixel is greater than the width, or rectangular. Widescreen TV (16:9) uses a pixel aspect ratio of 1.2:1, indicating the width is greater than its height, also rectangular. Luckily, HDTV at vertical resolutions of 720 and 1080 has an aspect ratio of 16:9 and uses square pixels, as standardized by the ATSC, so we chose a square pixel format for our project. Unfortunately, the challenges of delivering to an unknown monitor didn’t end there.

Plasma screens are made to display 16:9 formatted presentations but can also display 4:3. If you do decide to go with a 4:3 format you need to be aware that the viewer may not see a true 4:3 image. While there is usually a 4:3 pillarbox format option available on plasma displays, several manufacturer’s engineers have figured out their own unique ways to display a 4:3 on a 16:9 screen. In some cases, they do this by preserving the image in the center and stretching the edges towards the sides of the screen. In our case we created our presentation at 16:9 to allow the presentation to fill the screen. But the quest for the best display of a production didn’t end there, either.

Take a closer look at Plasma display resolutions and you’ll see that all screens are not created equal. Examining 7 plasma manufactures and their screens, we discovered that very few have a display of 1920 x 1080. In fact, of the 16 models we reviewed, only 4 had a native 1920×1080 display. This means that you really need to find out which model and manufacturer your client is using before you start production. If you don’t know, you might want to create your video to allow for the best presentation on the majority of plasma displays. We try to follow the rule of always working in the best quality (1080) and scaling down when necessary to meet the demands of the presentation, of course it’s always better if you can avoid resizing.

One last thought to consider is how to actually get your well produced production to the plasma display. One way would be to have the plasma connected to a hard drive where you can call up your presentation – in native HD, if possible. Another option would be to author a Blu-Ray disk, but this only works if your client has or plans to rent a Blu-Ray player. Finally, you could always author to DVD ,which is the path we had to take for this project since the client was on the east coast and they weren’t able to provide us enough details about their display setup. We exported our final comp as 16:9 with square pixels and brought it into our DVD authoring tool. From there we exported using DVD standards for a widescreen output. Did we get the greatest quality output? Maybe not the best possible, but by using the right settings throughout our post production workflow we produced the best possible DVD and it was certainly the most appropriate output for this project.

What’s your experience in working with Plasma screens? Leave a comment here with some of your thoughts and experiences on the subject.

I was working at hanging some lights in our green screen studio when I walked out and saw Jonathan, Brad and Michael gathered around two of our edit stations. They had split an After Effects project into three separate projects.


Michael is working from the top down.

Jonathan is working from the bottom up.

Brad is busy adding panache.

I decided I could be of the most help by walking away.

What a team!

Using User Presets as an Efficient Workflow Tool:

One of the most common buzzwords in the industry is “workflow”. You will see this term used more often than any other whenever people are discussing post-production. What they are really talking about is efficiency. The faster and more effectively one is able to perform tasks, the more they can use their time to improve the final output through creativity and polishing. In other words, the less time wasted on menial details, the more time can be put towards creating better projects.

In that vein, I would like to share a useful tip I have been using in Adobe After Effects CS3 and Adobe Premiere that has saved more time than I can imagine. Most AE users are familiar with effect presets and the ability to create user presets. What I am going to demonstrate is very fundamental, but is scaleable and applicable to numerous uses. I am going to demonstrate how to use user presets in conjunction with an organizational process to streamline tasks such as keying.

For this process to work best it actually starts before the camera rolls. The first step is to have a shotlist, with shots labeled in a standard numbering and lettering format. Obviously, you may not have control over this, but if you do, make sure that you stick to this list. During the shoot, make sure to slate every shot clearly and correctly. Once the footage is brought into Premiere, label it accordingly. This is common practice, and should be a part of any post-production process. If there wasn’t a shotlist, create one at this point, making sure to use a numeric system (see below).

EDIT

You’ll have a timeline that looks something like this:

Notice that all the clips were labeled accurately and the same shot was used multiple times while cutting together this dialogue scene between two characters. Fine-tune your edit until you are completely satisfied and ready to move onto the VFX/Motions Graphix.

Import the premiere project into AE. When this is done, all the data from Premiere is brought in, including the sequences, clips, and naming conventions. You might have to do a little organization, depending on how your tracks were setup in Premiere, and how you want your AE project layed out. In a future article I will discuss some practices and methods for streamling AE projects. But for now, let’s assume we’re neat and tidy and ready to key. Start at the beginning and move forward. Everyone has their own keying process, so do what works best for you. Once again, in the future I will discuss my methods a little more in depth. However, almost all techniques require the use of multiple effects.

Once you have your key set up, highlight all your effects and select the make new preset icon in the bottom right corner of Effects and Presets box. It will open a dialogue box to save the preset. Here is where the system kicks into high gear. At this point, what you are doing is creating a database of effects (in this case, keys). Since the same shot is used multiple times in this project, the effect will need to be used multiple times, with little to no changes. One might ask, “How does one keep track of all these effects?” It’s easy. Your naming convention has already been set up; it’s your shotlist. As long as you labeled your clips correctly in Premiere, each instance of a shot will be its labeled accordingly as well.

When you go to save, create a folder structure in your preset library, preferably numeric and labels. Create a folder for keys, and save the preset in the folder labeled by the following three things: Folder number (100 in my case), shot, and description. By using all three, it will be much easier to search for the desired preset quickly by simply typing in the keywords or a shot label in the search box.

As you move through your project, you will be able to quickly locate the correct key and efficiently. By using the shot label to search, a few keystrokes will bring up the correct key. This is much easier than any ctl C/V method I have ever used previously. The purpose of the numeric labeling is more clearly seen when working with artistic effects that may be used in any number of shots or projects. By creating preset animations/effects, and labeling them by number, you can quickly pull up any effect quickly and effectively, without a lot of time spent searching or recreating. For instance, all lens flares animations can be labeled 51* so by simply typing 51 in the search box, all presets will be at your fingertips instantly.

(footage courtesy of iTwinkle.tv)