FREE After Effects Reflection plugin
You did the word free don't you? ;-)
Simply click the 'download project' button on the link below to get the plugin. To install, simply drag it into your AE plugin's folder.
Happy reflection day,
Dennis
November 19, 2009
November 10, 2009
Premiere Pro 4.2 update is live
You can get the update for that and Adobe Media Encoder (also 4.2) via the Help menu. Just go to an Adobe application and select Help>Updates.
You can watch a video from Dave on Premiere Pro 4.2 here
Here's a list of fixes and features:
New in this release
- Panasonic P2 AVC-Intra material is now supported; new sequence presets are also included for editing this format.
Notable fixes
- Final Cut Pro Project Converter is now compatible with Final Cut Pro version 7
- Final Cut Pro Project Converter now maintains timecodes from the originally captured sources from Final Cut Pro
- Playback no longer stops when connecting/disconnecting a USB keyboard or mouse
- Performance is no longer diminished in mixed format sequences during playback, scrubbing, and exporting
- Fixed a field output issue when rendering a 720p 60/50 source in an interlaced SD sequence
- Third-party support
Known issues
- Use of Project Manager is not recommended for AVC-I since clip spanning is lost during project collect and copy
- Clip duration in media browser does not match duration of clip once it is imported
- AVC-I clips are redbar in native sequences
October 29, 2009
It's official: 64bit is the future for Premiere Pro and After Effects
64...bits...ONLY... Are you psyched or nervous?
I don't think many people are shocked by this and hopefully many people are excited about this as we slowly get closer to CS 'Next'. And to answer your next thought, no, it's not anytime soon!
I've added a couple of graphics and reviewed the text. Originally published 10/20/2009
Continue reading "It's official: 64bit is the future for Premiere Pro and After Effects " »
October 27, 2009
Another way to get your ABC's - It's on Vimeo!
You can watch the videos on Adobe TV, but now you can view these videos anytime on my Vimeo channel. As we wind down the year, I'm hoping to also make my tutorials available as a podcast, which was a customer request. So, if you're a Vimeo user, subscribe to my channel and connect with me! See you there.
Dennis
October 12, 2009
Nobel Prize organization using all Adobe tools
Adobe is generally a semi-modest company when it comes to talking about big customer wins, big engagements and the like. We don't usually trumpet it from the front page of the web site and I for one am okay with that. If you're good, you should let your work speak for yourself.
However, in this information overload age, if you've got a voice, it's at least good to mention things now and again. And so, I bring you news that the Nobel Prize organization uses all Adobe tools for their production and distribution. It's yet another powerful example of Adobe's end-to-end capabilities. From planning to playback, Adobe technology can be at the center of the work. So, please take a look at the Nobel Prize Org customer story
October 9, 2009
News and Notes from Genesis Project
Hey guys and gals - Wanted to let you know a couple of things going on and rather than constantly twitter (too short), I decided to put a quick entry up here on the blog. This is just a newsie kind of post but I did want to get one note out of the way - I'm trying to post a couple of the recent After Effects project files on the web, but our new blog system has me confounded at present, so it will have to wait.
September 10, 2009
Adobe TV gets a new look
Adobe TV has just updated their website and with all the changes, it's a great time for me to shamelessly mention the best show on there for video, especially After Effects: Adobe Beginner Classes! Be sure to add me to your library and also do a roll over on the episode #'s to get a description of what you'll get. I'll be looking to change up the episodes names soon to be more descriptive. Regardless, give it a look and don't forget about the Adobe Media Player as well.
Hearst TV selects Adobe for News Production
Hearst Television has selected Adobe Systems to help provide next generation tapeless solutions for generating newscasts. Here's the press release
This is big for so many reasons. It's big because it continues to validate Adobe Systems in broadcast, and I'm NOT talking about After Effects or Photoshop. It's big because it is another real world customer that is giving input into Adobe on how to make their products better which we all benefit from.
Continue reading "Hearst TV selects Adobe for News Production" »
September 9, 2009
WEVA show in Orlando
August 31, 2009
Admitting it's a problem is the big step towards solving it
Let's get it out there right now, "Our Customer Service department has issues."
There... I said it. Phew, I feel better... But what's more important is that our VP said it as well and addressed it to you.
I'd encourage you to download the small PDF and give it a thorough read. While it's nice to hear that a corporation can apologize, it's better that the letter points to a better result in the future. It also gives you a source to solve your problems in the interim if you're not getting the results you need.
August 27, 2009
AENY meeting this Thursday 8/27/09 @ 6:30PM
Get all of the details at the AENY site
August 25, 2009
After Effects New York is this Thursday!
The next AENY meeting is coming up this Thursday, August 27th and has a terrific line up as usual. We've (and by 'we' I mean Jim and Aharon) got two artists lined up including the Mixtape Club and a director from Psyop. Both of these should be really fantastic. I hope that you'll join us. You can get all of the details at the AENY site
August 14, 2009
Three more Adobe Beginner Classes episodes are done
They'll probably pop up on Adobe TV over the next few weeks. I've started to add some text elements in the video to help the tutorial along and to support what I'm saying. You'll see that one really start to show up on the last one (sorry, too lazy to go back and add them to the others!)
Continue reading "Three more Adobe Beginner Classes episodes are done" »
August 11, 2009
Random musings and what's cookin' at Adobe TV
In this era of social media, fast/faster/fastest and so many ways to communicate information, I find myself sometimes at a loss. There's too much to twitter here and yet it's not really a blog entry. What to do?
Continue reading "Random musings and what's cookin' at Adobe TV" »
August 6, 2009
AEScripts.com redesign
While my blog focuses on more beginner type stuff, I like to periodically point people to more advanced resources. In this case, AEScripts.com caters to all levels of Adobe After Effects users.
August 5, 2009
Benchmarking CS4 vs CS3 on Adobe TV
It's always easy to say things like '#1 market leader!'. There are some particular companies who come to mind where truth is secondary to the marketing message.
For Adobe, we want to proclaim our 'awesomeness' as much as the next company, but we try to stay within the realm of reality and show some respect to our customer's intelligence.
July 28, 2009
Do you want FREE tutorials? Then check out Adobe Media Player
I've blogged on this several times before, but I know that new people are always discovering the Adobe blogs, so I periodically will repeat myself by posting again on resources that may not be known to everybody.
Continue reading "Do you want FREE tutorials? Then check out Adobe Media Player" »
July 22, 2009
E-Seminar tomorrow on time saving features of CS4
With your's truly. I'll cover some tapeless workflow items, dip into OnLocation, metadata and speech-to-text and of course a little AE and FCP goodness for good measure.
ABC and tutorial coming soon
It's late at night, the kiddies and wife are in bed and I'm at my laptop for no good reason other than when something creative does grab me (it's rare!), it's hard for me to not want to capture it fresh.
July 17, 2009
Genesis Project: Comments going astray
We've recently updated our blog system (hooray!) and there was a lot of chatter the last couple of weeks about various topics as we transitioned. One of the topics that came up was that some comments were mistakenly being put into a junk folder. Well, guess what? It happened to me recently and I'm at a loss as to why it happened. Point being, that a number of comments made recently will be replied to shortly and I'll be looking at the folder more closely in the future. Thanks as ALWAYS for your comments. Your input is always very valuable to me and all Adobe bloggers.
Genesis Project has joined the Twitter revolution
The title says it all in accordance with the idea of 'tweets' being short and sweet. That being said, I'll comment that I'm far to old to be doing all of this social networking stuff! I'm not sure exactly how I'll be using Twitter and how I may (or may not) connect it to the blog here. Most likely, I'll be pinging my friend and fellow Adobe blogger John Nack for such advice. You'll see that he's got some tweets going back to his blog.
Back to not being sure about what to do - I always welcome some input from others on what you'd like to see from me. Until then, check out what I've twittered thus far and tell me what you think.
Cheers, Dennis
July 16, 2009
More people moving to 64 bit
Last night, I was at the New Jersey Videography Association (NJVA) and had a great time chatting to wedding videgraphers as well as renewing acquaintances with various vendors. In addition to a number of great presentations, there was a lot of conversation throughout the night.
July 14, 2009
My personal 'Ultimate, Awesome!' resource compendium (Part 2)
One of the neat things about Adobe products is that there is so much to learn about and so many ways to learn. As stated previously, I wanted to create a complete list of all of the awesome tutorials and resources in the world. However, that's just an impossible task - so I decided just to post some of my favorites on the ones that I've used at one time or another.
Continue reading "My personal 'Ultimate, Awesome!' resource compendium (Part 2)" »
July 13, 2009
Adobe Media Player changes to Adobe TV
This is kind of old news, but I thought it worth scribbling a quick line on it. The Adobe Media Player has stopped being a content aggregator and focusing on being a single point source on Adobe TV content. While I liked Adobe TV for watching and collecting media, I'm equally excited that the creative community have a tool that can be a terrific source for viewing, storing and retrieving tutorials for Adobe products.
Maximum PC: 21 Instant PC upgrades
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like to read Maximum PC magazine for tips on keeping my PC's in top condition, plus they bring just enough attitude to keep it fresh and fun. One of their articles recently talked about 21 things you could do for free to help speed up your system. Now, I wouldn't recommend all of them for the novice (or even the expert) but this is definitely worth a careful read and apply several of these things to your rig(s).
July 9, 2009
Adobe Production Premium time savers
Adobe Systems is not only promoting some savings, but also highlighting how CS4 provides some real world time savings. There are a number of resources to view or download, so when you have some time, give it a look.
June 12, 2009
Premiere Pro 4.1 getting good feedback
Premiere Pro has been out for a couple of weeks has been really well received thus far. It's not only addressed some bugs but also added some new functionality like the RED workflows, .VOB editing and Avid IMX import. I wanted to quickly post some of the feedback that's been posted on the Adobe forums. ;-)
"I'm very happy so far with 4.1 - they did a great job"
"They fixed everything in Premiere. Works great now."
"I'm totally happy with 4.1 update. I swear the fixes have already saved a couple hours of life."
"4.0.2 it took 12-15 minutes to render each reel if I clicked the use 'use' preview file…Now with version 4.1 they rendered in 8-9 minutes…AND I didn't have to wait a minute or two for the reels to start rendering. 4.1 starts in like 5 seconds…Also when I open PR or AE project using AME. It doesn't make me wait at least a minute like to pick the sequence to render. Does it right away."
"Adobe - Thank you for V4.1.0 - Still export back to the older versions! :-) No render Q!"
"I agree with another poster in a similar thread. This has got to be a record for getting the full download out the same day as the AUM version…Nice job Adobe!"
"…loading projects is indeed a lot snappier than it was. Loading a 30 minute project (source material is 1:35 hours) with 17 AE comps, 100+ HDV clips, and some miscellaneous material within 4 seconds is not bad."
"…a noticeable performance increase"
"Hats off to Adobe for finally coming through and polishing the decoding for AVCHD….I know we had to wait a while for the update, but I'm glad they didn't rush it and do some hack job, considering the update actually makes editing AVCHD that much more intuitive and efficient. Looks like we have a winner in my book!"
"…my big projects load 10x faster and I get realtime playback with Magic Bullet looks. Also get twice the frame rate when Dl to AE….
Also great better BCC support...cool and even better it only takes less than a second to click back to Premiere from any other program. 8 times faster at least….I'm happy."
"Premiere opens much faster now. It takes a few seconds for a big project instead of several minutes. Transitions between still work now perfectly AC3 audio is now audible."
"That's the quickest I've ever seen an update available on the website, after just being released."
...Now if only we could get every one to spell Premiere Pro right...Ah well, that's a problem that can wait for another day.
June 8, 2009
ProMax BDA in NYC 6/16-18
If you're in the New York City area, you might want to come to ProMax BDA. It's a high-end design type event around motion graphics and the like. The plus side is that you get to meet with a lot of top broadcasters and post houses. The down side is that it is not a free event. So if you're a full-time designer, you should definitely look at this event as continuing education.
June 5, 2009
Some thoughts on Premiere Pro 4.1
I'm back in the blogosphere! My absence has been punctuated by visits to the likes of HBO, CNN, FOX and many more. Broadcast is alive and well but my entries have consequently suffered.
In my absence, Premiere Pro version 4.1 has been released. It's a terrific release and I wanted to give some thoughts, miscellaneous tidbits and point people to some resources to learn more.
May 4, 2009
HP dreamcolor display
I've had a 24" HP DreamColor display for some time now and I've recently included it in my new Adobe TV rig for creating Adobe Beginner Classes shows. The basic premise of this display is that instead of 16.7 million colors that are possible on a normal LCD, you can see a billion.
May 1, 2009
Adobe CS4 Productivity report
In a tough economy, it's more important that your company (or you!) work as efficiently as possible and certainly things like video production can eat up a tremendous amount of time with various tasks. Whether it's creating final output types, making a DVD, importing video, or even the editing process, having control of your system - to keep creating with your hardware and software - is critical.
April 27, 2009
Photoshop User and NAPP: All things Photoshop
Every year or so, I imagine countless thousands have discovered the Adobe blogs and have recently gotten into creative fields using some number of Adobe tools. However, in this day and age, there is so much information from so many resources on so many different topics that one gets SO overwhelmed!
To that end, I like to point out a few of my favorite resources once in a while. The one that I'm mentioning today is National Association of Photoshop Professionals. They are the publishers of Photoshop User magazine as well as Layers.
These guys are just INSANE about Photoshop and it's related products and quite honestly, they taught me a LOT about Photoshop when I just joined Adobe. Now that I've been with Adobe for over four years, I still learn a LOT about Photoshop from them. They're that good.
What I like most about it, is that it is not JUST the magazine. In fact, the subscription fee is more about the web site and the services you get there than anything else. The magazine just becomes a bonus. They're is tech support, user forums and a lot of tutorial videos. Is it worth the $100 or so? Well, I wouldn't be mentioning it if it wasn't... ;-) Check out the link below to get started.
April 23, 2009
Closing days for Adobe upgrade offers
While the purpose of this blog is about information, I do try to stay away from information related to sales. At the risk of coming off as a pushy used car salesman, I wanted to make sure that people were aware of the offers that are currently available, but will end soon.
April 21, 2009
NAB announcements
Benefiting (depending on your point of view) from waking up 4:30AM pacific standard time I thought I would sneak in a quick post about some of the stuff that has been announced by Adobe or companies that support our products.
April 15, 2009
Adobe Beginner Classes Episode #17 is live!
I can barely keep up with the Adobe TV team - they're throwing the content out there as quickly as I can make it! ;-)
Read more to view the tutorial here or visit Adobe TV and click on Video Professional to see this episode.
As always, I'll recommend the Adobe Media Player as the best overall experience - it allows you to save the content locally to your hard drive so you can view it at your leisure and refer back to it anytime! Get the Adobe Media Player
Continue reading "Adobe Beginner Classes Episode #17 is live!" »
April 13, 2009
The future of online video?
As one of my co-workers is want to say, "I've seen the future of video and it's searchable."
One of the most intriguing features of Adobe's CS4 Production Premium release has been the idea of speech-to-text: the idea of converting spoken word in an audio or video file into text. It's one of the things that many of our broadcast clients are interested in - making their online video searchable and connecting interested viewers with their video clips.
April 8, 2009
NAB 2009 - come visit me
NAB is busy, hectic and exciting even in a down economy. There may be less people attending, but those that are there will be real decision makers.
As for me, I'm mostly tied up in meetings but I'll be filling in here and there at the booth. If you have any interest in visiting me, I would love for you to stop by and introduce yourself. I have the privilege of meeting a lot of people during the year, but it's always fun to meet new faces. So, if you're a reader of this blog and are going to Vegas this year, I hope that you'll try to stop by the Adobe booth on Tuesday morning between 9AM and 1:30PM - that's when I'll be on one of the Adobe pods.
March 26, 2009
AENY: Andrew Kramer from Video Copilot coming
After Effects luminary Andrew Kramer will be coming to NYC to do an evening of AENY on March 26th. Click on the AENY meetings page for all of the details. If you haven't been to an AENY meeting or seen Andrew do his thing, than this is the one to go to. Read on for some details.
Continue reading "AENY: Andrew Kramer from Video Copilot coming" »
Pre-Keyed Footage from All Bets are Off
Aharon must be working a double overtime behind my back, because the last time I checked, he had a new baby, was workin' his tail off for All Bets are Off Productions and running the AENY group on the side.
Now, I find out that he's published a collection of pre-keyed footage? That's not strange is it? Well, what if I told you it was over 45,000 clips, with 500 actors and search options galore! All right Aharon, out with it, have you perfected human cloning???
Check out this great resource - I'm sure I don't have to speak about Aharon's quality or his commitment to an excellent product. I even saw the word 'free clips' on the site if you register. Schaweet!
March 10, 2009
64 Bit: The best $300 (or less!) you can spend this year?
I've had some more thoughts on the ideas of 64bit and it's value in light of this poor economy. I mean what's the point of talking about 64bit if you can't actually use it? With that in mind, I set out to see how much moving to 64bit on the PC platform would actually cost the average consumer.
Continue reading "64 Bit: The best $300 (or less!) you can spend this year?" »
March 3, 2009
64 bit OS and Adobe products
A week or so ago, I blogged on a tutorial from Event DV around editing workflows with AVCHD. In that same issue, contributor Jan Ozer wrote an article called CS4 at 64 that delves into the differences that he observed between Adobe applications and how they perform differently between 32bit Windows XP and 64bit Windows Vista.
February 28, 2009
Convoluted blogging practice hopefully resolved
While you may have never noticed, the fact was that I was using a convoluted way to actually post my entries and content to this blog.
The problem was that Contribute CS4 was practically unusable on the Mac which is my main laptop computer. Text entry was slow, the thing crashed...in short it was ugly. I had to launch VMWare, get into Vista 64 through emulation on my Mac, launch Contribute CS3 (not 4) and do my entries. Not the most pleasant of experiences to say the least!
However, it would seem that all is right again in the world and after a Saturday install of Contribute CS4 along with the important update, I am typing away and experiencing no problems at all. Kudos to the Contribute team for tracking down these issues and fixing them.
February 26, 2009
NLEs: How native workflows help you save
...Or perhaps this entry could be titled, "A study of contrasts"
I recently received the latest issue of Event DV, which is an excellent magazine with some solid writers. Each month they've got some excellent contributions from Photoshop wiz, Lance Gray and an editorial from Jan Ozer.
Continue reading "NLEs: How native workflows help you save" »
February 25, 2009
Matrox releases Axio 4.0 for CS4!
Matrox has announced the availability of Axio 4.0 software for Production Premium package including Premiere Pro CS4. This software not only adds support for CS4 for existing Axio users but also the following:
* Full resolution, full frame rate, realtime editing of many more layers of video and graphics
* Realtime mixed-format timelines and multi-cam
* More effects in real time including color correction, chroma/luma keying, speed changes, 3D DVE, blur/glow/soft focus, and many more
* Realtime native editing of Panasonic P2 and P2 HD and Sony XDCAM, XDCAM HD, and XDCAM HD422 clips (MXF files)
* Realtime native editing of Sony XDCAM EX clips (MP4 files)
* Native support for additional codecs including: DVCPRO HD, MPEG HD, MPEG HD422, offline HD, MPEG-2 I-frame in HD and SD, IMX, DVCPRO, and DVCPRO50
* Composite, Y/C, HD/SD analog component, and HD/SD SDI input and output
* Simultaneous HD and SD output
* Realtime MPEG-2 IBP capture from analog, DV, and SDI sources for DVD authoring
* WYSIWYG video output for graphics and compositing Adobe After Effects, and Photoshop, Autodesk Combustion and 3ds Max, eyeon Fusion, and NewTek LightWave 3D (32-bit versions) with dynamic Alt+Tab switching
All in all, it looks like a good release. Go to the Matrox website for more details.
February 24, 2009
Customer Story on Premiere Pro
I recently received a note from Juan Carlos, a New York area Premiere Pro editor who has done some interesting work in the game field. Juan Carlos has done an interesting film called Second Skin which is about gamers lives inside these massive game worlds.
More recently, he let me know that he's connected VBS.tv and the show is called Motherboard. It's about games as well and the initial episodes were covering Lord British (aka Richard Garriott) who developed several games including the Ultima series of yesteryear.
It's an interesting view and in three parts. If it tickles your fancy, you should check it out here.
Of course, Juan is busy cutting away in Premiere Pro CS4. Real world work (on virtual worlds) being done on Premiere Pro. And why not? It's the best editor out there in my opinion! ;-) Enjoy the videos.
Adobe Beginner Classes coming on Adobe TV!
I've finished three episodes and trying to squeeze in some more in my spare time. These episodes are ones that I really like, because they focus on either something really cool, or something really necessary.
I've found that creating these is much like your own work - sometimes the muse strikes you and you create some good stuff and other times...yawn... When it's the latter, I don't publish anything and when it's the former - well, I hope you like it.
Continue reading "Adobe Beginner Classes coming on Adobe TV!" »
February 19, 2009
Want to beta test OnLocation some day?
I love provactive titles. That one got you didn't it? ;-)
It's hard to imagine that Adobe is already looking at what to do next with OnLocation, but you'd be shocked at how far off we try to think when planning on the future of our products. We do this in part because we have so many passionate customers that need new functionality.
New Adobe Beginner Classes coming up soon!
I've been extremely remiss in doing episodes, but the fact is Adobe has given me a different assignment this year and as a result, doing Adobe Beginner Classes has fallen off the map!
Never fear! I've got two episodes done (and I'm quite happy with them) and hopefully doing some more this week.
As a refresher, you can get to my 'channel' by clicking here
February 13, 2009
I could get into digital delivery of magazines
I just recevied a digital version of Videomaker magazine and I have to say I enjoyed it.
The question for me is why did I enjoy it?
Continue reading "I could get into digital delivery of magazines" »
February 12, 2009
Upcoming NY/NJ events
Just a quick post to let you know about a few local events that will be happening over the next month or so.
AENY - After Effects New York will be on for Thursday, February 26th. Always a bunch of great people and conversation about After Effects. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should. It's on 11th street around 6th avenue. Get all the details at the website.
NJFCPUG - A couple of days earlier in the week, Tuesday to be precise, I will be in North Jersey presenting to the NJ FCP users group. I'll be discussing how Production Premium fits into a FCP workflow and showing some workflow ideas including the now famous Final Cut Pro importer into Premiere Pro.
TekServe - An open invitation to have watch a basic presentation in an open format...meaning this is probably a good opportunity to ask me questions about Adobe stuff. I'll be focusing a bit more on Premiere Pro at the request of Tekserve, but if you've got questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
I hope to see you soon - Dennis
February 6, 2009
FCP users redux
Late yesterday I saw on the Adobe blog roll the title FCP Users: Using Premiere Pro is not cheating!
Of course I clicked on it and read it - that was too intruiging a title not to read for me and the comments and reactions have so mirrored my own that I too had to comment on it.
February 4, 2009
iPhone, Google G1 and Adobe Flash
Many people have been asking almost every Adobe employee about if/when Flash comes to the iPhone. Similar to this, I posted an entry about Google's upcoming phone quite some time ago (over a year) and today it's getting more hits than ever for the same reason - when is Flash coming to it?
So, for no other reason than to satisfy your need to know and to get gratuitous traffic to this blog (just kidding!), I came across this article the other day and am passing it on to you. In it, it has some public comments by Adobe's CEO, Shantanu Narayen about Flash for the iPhone and also the Google G1. Have at it.
January 28, 2009
Another Mac customer trying Premiere Pro and liking it!
As an Adobe person who is often on the road, I talk to customers from all walks of life - be it from a hobbist to MTV and everything in between. From these customers, I've gotten this kind of response from many: "I use (fill in the blank - Apple or Avid) but I have to say, that Production Premium and Premiere Pro are pretty compelling for me. I might give this a shot." Below is another link from a real-world group that gave CS4 a try and had a great experience from it.
Continue reading "Another Mac customer trying Premiere Pro and liking it!" »
January 21, 2009
After Effects Interface question
As you can probably imagine, there is a lot of internal emails that fly about inside of Adobe and its extended developer community. One such email came from a developer who made a comment. In essence, he said that some users prefer After Effects 6.5 since it is the last version with a 'decent Mac interface.'
January 13, 2009
CS4 Road show and my focus for 2009
I am in Florida this morning before I jump on a plane to Los Angeles. I wanted to get a quick post in to say that yesterday's CS4 roadshow was a lot of fun and packed with people interested in seeing our products and the products of our partners. We had all of the major hardware partners there and showing CS4 drivers (mostly in beta) as well as Panasonic, nvidia, Rimage and many more. Since the event was at Full Sail, it had a lot of students there.
January 7, 2009
OnLocation 4.0.2 Update available
That's really all there is to this post!
The link below says the following about the new update: "The Adobe® OnLocation™ CS4 4.0.2 update contains six bug fixes involving handling of long clips, support for DVC Pro PAL, a freeze on opening SureShot, and a crash on playing a clip after scrubbing."
Get it here
Upcoming Adobe Video events
Just a quick reminder that Adobe is having a road show tour. People constantly tell me that they really enjoy them, so I hope you'll consider joining us. We're hitting eight cities and if the event is successful we hope to do more. Not only will Adobe be there, but a ton of our partners including many of our close friends at Blackmagic, Matrox and AJA. In addition, you can see the new Quadro CX board up close which is a dynamite accelerator for several Adobe applications.
Here's the details: Adobe CS4 Roadshow
One other reminder is that there will be a Sony virtual tradeshow on January 15th. It certainly sounds interesting and if you've got the time, stop in for a bit and chat with Adobe people online to answer any questions you have. After it's done, I would really like to get some comments on it via this post or my other post on this
Here's how to register for the Sony show: Register
December 18, 2008
An article on 64 bit computing and Production Premium
Dave from Dav's Tech Table emailed me this story from Jan Ozer about his recent interest in 64bit computing. As always, Jan tells with it with thoughtfulness and insight. It's a good morning tech read...
December 15, 2008
Red camera workflows
All right, lets get the immediate thing out of the way. I've been dark for a while on the blogosphere. Guilty as charged. There's a certain blogging product that has been giving me fits and sadly it's an Adobe product. Ah well, we're not perfect, though we try real hard. Now...on to more important things
November 21, 2008
Premiere Pro 4.0.1 is live and you need to get it!!!
Yes, it's that simple - you need to get it... Why?
Well, of course there some little bug fixes that you probably have never encountered. Or if you are encountering them, then hopefully this addresses them! But more importantly it give you some wonderful new functionality!
Here's what's new about this version
OMF Export - for those people doing some serious audio work or need to interface with ProTools, here's the ticket. This has been a long time coming and I'm glad to say we're finally there.
AAF Import/Export - This is for people who want to interact with Avid systems. It can't get any better than this can it?
Final Cut Pro Import - Oh snap...it can... This is not, I repeat NOT an EDL. It's much better. Cuts, PIPs, transitions, keyframes of basic transforms like scale and position all come across. If you're a FCP editor whose wanted to have some of the integration of Production Premium, well now you can. Edit in FCP, export to XML, import into Premiere Pro and finish with whatever other Adobe applications you need to use.
Other things: Surcode support, edit in Audition (Windows only), and some things that will allow our third parties to access some necessary funtionality for their hardware.
So, in one fell swoop, we've opened up interoperability between the major audio system of the world and the two major competitors in the NLE world. We want to play nice with everyone!
By the way, you may have seen some chatter about the RED plugin. It's coming but we've held off a little bit longer because we're getting some great feedback from users about whats needed. This will be an evolving process, but it will be worth the wait.
Get the software below...
Here's the link for Mac: Premiere Pro 4.0.1 Mac
And here's the link for PC: Premiere Pro 4.0.1 PC
November 19, 2008
Yet another cautionary tale of backing up your data (and in praise of Tekserve!)
I won't belabor the point but get straight to the conclusion: If you don't think your computer will ever blow up - you're WRONG! Back up your stuff!!!
Boy, I feel better already....
Flash, ARM, MAX, AIR and more
As a guy who primarily focuses on Adobe's video products, I look at Flash from a different perspective than many. That being said, it's noteworthy for video and Flash designers alike to pay attention to the goings on in the world of Flash
November 10, 2008
In praise of HP warranties
Often times when people consider buying new hardware, the idea of the warranty rarely plays into the decision. In a sense I understand it - you don't buy something with the idea that it's going to fail. However, with technology there are so many tiny things (read 'nano-scale') that makes the idea of a DOA (dead on arrival) experience sometimes a reality.
October 31, 2008
Adobe Product Trials are live
As a lover of 'try before you buy' it is with a great amount of pleasure that I let you know that Adobe has published a link for evaluating our CS4 suites (in all configurations.)
October 29, 2008
Mix and match - the incredible flexibility of Premiere Pro
Recently, I had the opportunity in Boston to do something I had never done before: a “Non-linear editing shootout!” I agreed to do it with some trepidation because such things can be skewed or slanted. My concern was that this thing be thought out with objectivity because the simple fact is that unless the format is laid out properly, chances are one NLE will stand out from the others and no one will get the benefit of seeing what an individual product can do.
Suffice it to say that it turned out to be a very enlightening experience for me, so I wanted to tell you about it.
Continue reading "Mix and match - the incredible flexibility of Premiere Pro" »
October 6, 2008
Genesis Project responds to customer requests!
Some time ago, I posted Adobe Beginner Classes Episode #9 and along with it, made a request to ask what you'd like to see in terms of tutorials, information and the like. I received a few comments and wanted to quickly take the time to respond to some of them before it gets too out of date. Read on to find out more.
Continue reading "Genesis Project responds to customer requests!" »
September 23, 2008
AENY - Special night with After Effects Product Manager
First things first, CS4 is announced and my schedule today is packed! However, I want to scramble to get a couple of posts up first.
Continue reading "AENY - Special night with After Effects Product Manager" »
September 22, 2008
The crowd roars for CS4
The live announcement and presentation of Creative Suite 4 is tomorrow and I've had a blast telling people about it, responding to comments on another blog entry and of course talking to customers.
September 15, 2008
Corporate culture via John via Chuck
Sadly, this is a post that few people will actually take the time to read but is valuable nonetheless. Maybe I should put a title of "CS4 ships!" Nah...
John Dowell blogged this morning on corporate culture as a prediction of where a company is going and throughout it, it in turn quotes from a Wharton interview with Chuck Geschke - one of the founders of Adobe Systems.
I think John did a great job with this lengthy blog post and I would encourage you to read it. It correctly captures the spirit of Adobe and one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about why Adobe is where it is and why we will continue to be successful with you (our customers) in the future.
September 4, 2008
HD Expo in NYC - Sign up for Adobe's Intensive workshop!
I'm busy trying to organize my schedule over the next few months and one of the things I have coming up in HD Expo in NY's Javitts center. If you're a student of the calendar, you'll notice that we announce CS4 on September 23rd. You'll also notice that the Expo and the day of the workshop is September 25th. What do you think I'll be showing? Yup, you're right. So sign up here
CS4: getting closer
While trying not to be a bandwagon kind of blogger, I've decided to post a tidbit about CS4. I've waited a couple of days before announcing that we're announcing CS4. I think many of us in Adobe land tend to chuckle when we see this - I mean "announce that we'll announce? ;-)" More importantly, is the information that will come with this announcement.
August 20, 2008
Adobe and AJA at B&H
If you're not doing anything tomorrow (come on it's summer time - take it easy and visit the coolest camera and video store on the planet!) then come and visit Adobe along with AJA as we discuss CS3 and the tools available. A representative from AJA will also be there, so it will be a fun time for all. The event is tomorrow, August 21st at B&H's 2nd floor demo room. The event starts at around 11AM. Hope to see you there.
August 4, 2008
Studies in success: New customer stories
Just a quick post here to mention that there are two new customer stories based around video and film making.
For Unified Pictures, they employed nearly all of the Adobe tools in a variety of projects based around both Macs and PCs. Get all of the details by clicking here and getting the PDF: Unified Pictures
For ReelTV, they utilize After Effects, Soundbooth, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc. Get all the details by going here: ReelTV
After Effects Tutorial: Adjustment Layers and Track Mattes
Adjustment Layers as a term sounds very perplexing and perhaps just downright weird. It sounds like I should be talking about Chiropractors instead of After Effects. Nevertheless, adjustment layers are one of the most powerful tools for an AE artist and if you're willing to read through the attached tutorial, I give a couple of minor examples on how to harness the power of this under utilized feature.
Along the way, I will also show you a simple example on using Track Mattes - a wonderful tool displaying your video in unique shapes - in this case text. Yes, video text is within your grasp and it's easy with track mattes!
Finally, I happen to show you how to use Motion Sketch as a means to input real-time position data into layers within your composition.
So, download the project file and come along for a triple whammy tutorial!
July 31, 2008
Red Camera support!
Some big news came today from the founder of Red Camera. From Jim Jannard:
"Within a week, RED R3D files will open natively on in CS3 Premiere Pro and After Effects."
Here's the link
Let the shouting, cheering and conversation begin!
July 25, 2008
Adobe Beginner Classes Episode #6 is live!
You know the routine by now - right? You should watch it via the Adobe Media Player because then the contents is yours to review whenever it's convenient for you. Of course you can also watch it via Adobe TV and finally, you can get it by watching it right here. As always, let me know any comments about what you like, don't like, etc. via this blog's comments feature. Enjoy!
July 24, 2008
"Holy Hot Looks Batman, they're Magic Bullets!"
I've got to admit that having access to almost any plugin that works with an Adobe product is a huge amount of fun and a burden. Why would it be a burden? Two reasons: First, you want to support your partners and give them props where it makes sense but not all of them make first class products. Second, there are so many that you can't realistically stay on top of them.
Continue reading ""Holy Hot Looks Batman, they're Magic Bullets!"" »
New Adobe Media Player available
"New Adobe Media Player - old news already"
Sure I know that many people have already posted on the new Adobe Media Player, but hey, "better late than never!"
The truth is that many people have not already heard about the new version or have not launched their current version in the last few days. If that's you, then launch it and you'll be prompted to download the latest version which is 1.1. The new version tweeks the interface in several ways including the main layout, and lightening the interface color. The catalog of shows is growing ever larger and the new version makes them a bit easier to find. I have to say there is a TON of stuff now - enough that there is definitely something there for everyone and best of all it is FREE!!!
When it's all said and done, go to Adobe.com and get the Media Player if you haven't already. Once you've got it going, I want you to subscribe to my Adobe TV show...Yes, right away. ;-)
July 17, 2008
The Colbert Report : 7-16-08
I was graciously invited to The Colbert Report after showing them some of the Speech-to-Text capabilities of Soundbooth CS4 which is available on Adobe Labs
This technology is opening eyes up all over broadcast as collecting information, called metadata is becoming increasingly important in both content creation and delivery. As I've mentioned before, if I have converted the dialog to text, it is now searchable, so I can find the clips I need faster. From a delivery point of view, it is easy to take that metadata and apply it as tags in a web page. Cool and cooler...
The experience of going to the studio was great and so was the show. As a guy who is most often looking at content after a show has been done, it's neat to see it happen before your eyes and believe me there is a ton of work that goes into making this happen!
What was a special treat for me was the fact that the guest was non-other than my favorite band as a kid, RUSH. This was their first televised show in over 30 years and it was neat to see them close up.
June 16, 2008
Update: Premiere Pro & AVC HD revisited - a list of solutions
AVC HD has been a topic that has dominated a previous post where the comments are really the topic as opposed to the topic itself. This post has driven a large portion of my overall traffic, which has been humbling as I'd like to see more of it go to my tutorials and content (hint, hint, sniffle.)... Of course, I dig getting people on the site at all, so what they hey - hit me wherever! ;-)
Gosh, haven't left the first paragraph and I'm already digressing...Lets see, ah yes AVC HD.
Continue reading "Update: Premiere Pro & AVC HD revisited - a list of solutions" »
June 5, 2008
Getting back to content
Last year, I was cranking out content, tutorials, posts, news bits and more on a regular basis. Somewhat unfortunately, I've been doing a lot of different work for Adobe in the past several months that has kept me from getting a regular rhythm to posting this year. I'm not complaining about these changes - I've been doing some exciting stuff... ;-) but I truly like to blog and provide some ideas and tutorials that can help people.
May 20, 2008
NYC Adobe event update - 5/29
Adobe is extending an open invitation to join us and many other exciting vendors as we recap what went on at NAB. It's happening on May 29th, near B&H at the New Yorker hotel. Read on to get all of the event details and to register.
May 4, 2008
Design Ideals: B&W + one color = nice!
When you see great design (it never comes from me), it immediately just pops out at you and says, "I'm great design." It just works that way.
April 30, 2008
Adobe Live event on May 29th in New York City
Did you miss the NAB show and happen to live around the New York area? Did you hear about this or that and wish you had been there? Well, I may not have all of the answers for you, but Adobe and our partners have put something unique together that I'm hoping you'll come to. It's going to be a Post-NAB event around Adobe Systems solutions workflows along with our partners and we'll be reviewing and showcasing all of the solutions and NAB announcements that happened this year.
Continue reading "Adobe Live event on May 29th in New York City" »
April 29, 2008
Adobe Technology Preview on Adobe TV
In an earlier post I talked about some of our Adobe announcements and the most important of these to me was the technology preview demonstration that happened a couple of times during the four day NAB show. When I did this post, I looked around on YouTube to see if someone had posted it, but no. Well, I was pleased to hear that Adobe TV has quickly published a lot of the NAB content and so I wanted to include it here for you to view.
April 25, 2008
HD Acquisition article from Event DV
Today, while wolfing down cold pizza for 5 minutes during work, I do what I usually do - skim a trade magazine. Today it was Event DV. It's been around for a while and honestly I like the format a lot. For the back page editorial they have a long time writer in the tech/video space and that is Jan Ozer. This month he wrote about HD acquisition and it was so relevant that I wanted to pass it on to you.
Here's the article: The Moving Picture: Ingesting HD Acquisition
Why do I like it? Well, besides rehearsing the history of acquisition starting with the VHS tape, he spends just the right amount describing what each step was and why it was good and bad. He goes through DV, HDV, Long GOP MPEG, and on through AVC HD, AVC-Intra and DVCPro HD. Secondly, I like it because he ends the article with MXF and how it will be important for people to choose the right editor to edit MXF, especially if metadata is important to them. You know where I stand on Adobe's MXF editing - I think its the best hands down and only going to get better. But, rather than me droning on about Adobe and metadata, take a look at the article and give it a read - I'm glad I did.
Happy Friday from your Adobe pal - Dennis
PS - To my AVC HD crowd - there's something in there for you too, though nothing I haven't really outlined already in my now famous post
April 24, 2008
Expelled and metadata
So, I happened to catch the movie Expelled from Ben Stein yesterday and while I could wax philosophic on it for an extended period of time, I will rather limit most of my comments to the my thoughts about metadata and how it can help such films get done more quickly in the future.
April 23, 2008
ABC Episode #2 online soon and 5/29 event in NYC
Adobe Beginner Classes episode #2 is encoded and posted on my share folder. So once the Adobe TV guys grab it, it will go online - probably sometime later this week. When it does, I'll post again and let everyone know.
Continue reading "ABC Episode #2 online soon and 5/29 event in NYC" »
April 18, 2008
NAB wrap up
NAB was tremendous as you might imagine and Adobe had a terrific presence and impact upon the attendees. Adobe is what you might call a "destination" booth, but we don't take anything for granted and so it was with great pleasure and relief that we had a packed booth from the opening of the show to the very last hour on Thursday.
April 14, 2008
NAB Day 1: Adobe Premiere now supports XDCAM EX
Adobe continues to develop tapeless workflows and today announced native XDAM EX and XDCAM HD support. The update should be live today, along with an excellent new workflow video on Dave Helmly's blog
Continue reading "NAB Day 1: Adobe Premiere now supports XDCAM EX" »
April 11, 2008
Adobe offer to Avid users extended through May
If you're an Avid user and are looking to add the Adobe tools to your toolbox, or are looking to switch, then Adobe's done it's best to make it easy for you. Visit the following link below and check out the details!
Come and get it!
Are you ready for NAB?
Or, more to the point, are you going?
NAB will be an extravaganza again this year to be sure, despite some noticable absences. If you've never been to NAB it is the ultimate gear fest for broadcasters and media publishers. It is the Home Depot for tantalizing gear that will do 4D, real-time moves in XL, super HD rez on 40 streams simultaneously to your TV, internet and phone. It is the ultimate Best Buy boy toy store in the world. It's Christmas time for gear junkies.
April 9, 2008
eSeminar - Newspapers are interested in video!
Newspapers have been facing declining circulations for several years now and they've been faced with a fight for their lives as new media threatens to take all of their ad dollars away.
Fortunately, I'm seeing more and more newspapers embracing new media and delivering video content on their websites as a way to stay 'up-to-the-minute' on news and content in general.
Continue reading "eSeminar - Newspapers are interested in video!" »
Adobe TV = ABC = Adobe Beginner Classes!
So much to talk about here and yet so little time with NAB coming up this weekend. Adobe TV is an exciting new chapter in how Adobe presents resources, tutorials, news and content to users and anyone who has an interest in Adobe products.
Continue reading "Adobe TV = ABC = Adobe Beginner Classes!" »
April 8, 2008
Internet usage cap from service providers?? Scary!
I don't normally do posts that are commentary per se, but I figured I'd make an exception here. There has been murmurs, rumors, whispers, etc. of ISP's (Internet Service Providers) like Time Warner, AT&T and Comcast as putting caps or ceilings on the amount of usage the average customer can get in a particular month. I see this as bad for consumers, bad for their customers and bad for business.
Continue reading "Internet usage cap from service providers?? Scary!" »
March 31, 2008
My first Blu-ray experience
Call me the atypical Adobe employee...While I am a techno geek and absolutely love to play with technology, I either choose or (personal finances permitting) can't get all of the lovely toys exactly when I want to.
In my case, I chose not to run out and get a Blu-ray player right away - even though Encore is still the only cross-platform affordable Blu-ray authoring tool available.
March 29, 2008
Independent Film, Blu-ray, Photoshop for free and other weekend ramblings
Three topics in one for a weekend post. I presented last night to a NY film crowd and wanted to share some thoughts about it as it relates to Adobe. Talk about some new Blu-ray numbers and of course jump on the bandwagon with Photoshop Express. If any of the three sound exciting to you, then read on! ;-) PS - they SHOULD sound exciting to you...
Continue reading "Independent Film, Blu-ray, Photoshop for free and other weekend ramblings" »
March 19, 2008
Churches are broadcasting too...plus knitting TV
A couple of weekends ago, I spent some time at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel while the National Association of Religous Broadcasters (NRB) convened to talk about media. With Easter coming up this weekend, I thought it a perfect opportunity to share about my experiences and thoughts from that show.
Continue reading "Churches are broadcasting too...plus knitting TV" »
a new hardware partner for HD and Premiere Pro
This isn't necessarily new to anyone, but MOTU has finally released their Windows drivers for their V3HD product. The box offers a bevvy of I/O and a DVC Pro HD chip that handles all of the internal processing. Click on the picture to take you to the website.
Continue reading "a new hardware partner for HD and Premiere Pro" »
March 4, 2008
How to find stuff on GP: Tutorials
Hi all - I've been doing a ton of client meetings as well as internal Adobe meetings, so my posting has flagged a bit lately. However, I wanted to give a couple of pointers for you as you continue looking at the blogosphere and Adobe and Genesis Project blogs in particular.
I clicked on the tutorials button on the right side of the Genesis Project blog to review my humble tutorials and articles that point you to significant lessons on the web. I was somewhat surprised to count almost 50 tutorials created by me within a year. That's a simultaneous 'woo hoo' and 'are you kidding me' kind of moment. A way to go thought followed by a 'you're crazy.' So....click on Tutorials to get a feel for all of the content that is there - you might find something interesting.
I've got a few March events in New York city towards the end of March - one at Adorama and another at MPEG. Of course, we'll have the AENY meeting there as well.
The Genesis Project has received some more comments and along with that some ideas for future articles or tutorials. I will be trying to get some of these done before NAB. In the meantime, please keep the comments coming.
Gotta go!
February 29, 2008
AENY rocks the house!
Last night's AENY meeting set another new record. We believe we had over 200 people at one. The feedback is tremendous, if you take out the fact that everyone is so cramped! If you're a part of AENY, thanks for making our one year anniversary so kickin'! Don't let the crowding stop you from coming to the next meeting. Vist AENY to get all the details on our next meeting. While you're there, please sign up for the mailing list - we won't spam you. However, it will give us an overview of the total size of our group as it stands right now.
Also, we're still working on finding a new, larger space. If you find something or know someone, please get in touch with Aharon or Jim (group leaders)
February 28, 2008
Discovery Channel Brand ID Tutorial
Yesterday I posted a working animation of a new tutorial that I was working on. Well another late night and early morning have brought it to conclusion. Click on to get the PDF tutorial and project files for our Discovery Channel Brand ID!
February 27, 2008
Discovery Channel remake - AE Tutorial
I've been spending time in the city this week and visiting a lot of the broadcasters this week as a run up to NAB. In the evenings (late evenings!) I've continued doing email and also tutorials. So, here's one that I will try to write up and post the project files in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy this simple After Effects animation.
February 26, 2008
Adobe AIR now available
Adobe put our AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) out there for the world this Monday. It combines HTML, PDF, and Flash in one environment. It allows a whole community of Flash developers to not only design cool web pages but now, cool applications.
On Adobe's home page, you now download the AIR runtime. Coincidently, it's next to the buttons for downloading Flash Player and the Acrobat reader. To me this is an indication of how impactful AIR could be.
If you're about to click away from this post - WAIT! Click the link below and you'll begin to understand what AIR can do for you as a consumer. My example is that I use ebay personally. To say that the ebay interface is less than perfect would be an understatement. Well, ebay created their own AIR app that you can download and oh - what a difference!
There are other apps that are in our spotlight section as well that might be worth a look depending on what you're interested in.
If you're looking for a little additional reading on the story behind AIR, check out the NY Times article published on Monday: Adobe Blurs Line Between PC and Web
I can't say that I'm a Flash programmer, but the potential of this environment makes me want to pick up a book and start learning!
February 23, 2008
Are you in a media ministry - visit Adobe at NRB
Part of the reason for me to name my blog "The Genesis Project" is to emphasize the idea of beginner type tutorials and information to content creators. I firmly believe that there is an audience out there that is wanting someone to help them get the basics and then from there they move on to training and tutorials that are beyond the scope of mine.
However, another part of the name for "The Genesis Project" has to do with who I am and that leads me to the point of this entry. If you are involved in ministry, whether it is a volunteer or as an employee and are considering attending NRB: the National Religous Broadcasters show, I hope that you will stop by and say hello. Adobe will be there and in addition to having a booth, we'll have several sessions on Adobe products, designed to help people create content efficiently and with high quality.
We have some exciting sessions and you can get some of the details here
I look forward to meeting many of you there.
February 22, 2008
A new year and a new look for The Genesis Project!
We're coming up on the one year anniversary of The Genesis Project in early March and during the entire year, I was unsatisfied with the basic blue look of my blog. I mean, we're Adobe after all, we should be able to do something a bit better! However, I am not a web guy so I was focusing on the content rather than the look. All of that has now changed with The Genesis Project's new look!
Continue reading "A new year and a new look for The Genesis Project!" »
February 21, 2008
Some thoughts on Audition from an audio guy
It's been a busy time, and even though the launch of Production Premium was in July of '07, we seem to only be busier than ever. So it is with a certain amount of sheepishness that I confess that I haven't spent as much time with Audition as I would like.
Continue reading "Some thoughts on Audition from an audio guy" »
February 12, 2008
Device Central Updates
A quick hit here - Adobe has published a total of four updates for Device Central so far and if you haven't updated yet, you might check the following link which will give you access to new device libraries for the latest phones and devices.
You'll have to log on with your Adobe ID, but if you're developing content for mobile phones and need to see how it will look on multiple devices, this is a great place to start.
February 7, 2008
More broadcasters are investing in CS3
If you've been even a semi-regular reader of my humble blog, you'll know that I think I've got a terrific job. I mean, what's not to like? I get to travel the country, talk to fascinating people and companies and talk about products that are truly awesome.
February 5, 2008
Adobe Stock Photos Uninstaller
In case you didn't hear, Adobe has decided to discontinue the Stock Photos aspect of Bridge CS3. With iStockphoto, I'm not surprised. So if you'd like to uninstall it, you might check out the following links:
I don't think this is something you have to run out and do immediately, but if you're like me who likes to keep his computer as tidy as is reasonably possible, then you'll run it sometime when it's convenient.
February 1, 2008
An interesting day in tech
A quick hit blog entry here:
That Microsoft is trying to purchase Yahoo will greatly extend their reach into hosted services and provide an expanded revenue source with ad revenue. In addition, they've made a push this year with Silverlight and their Expressions products. They're taking on Apple, Adobe, and Google all at the same time. It's fascinating stuff to be sure and hey...how many companies can pony up $44B? Here's one take on it from MSNBC
Also, Avid announced earnings today and they continue to take a beating. While they seemed to do okay for the quarter, their year ended up on a down note and so as of now, their stock is down about 30% in one day...OUCH.
Here's the Avid Press Release
January 30, 2008
American Idol or just an excuse for me to talk baseball?
As I mentioned in my last post, I often notice ads, videos, etc as I am traveling around the country and recently I noticed the new American Idol campaign with contestants superimposed on iconic buildings or bridges around the US. There's not much difficulty to doing it, but you need to know your selection tools and probably some masking.
In casting about for a proper example, I was pleasantly given a timely example when yesterday on the radio I heard that Johan Santana was coming to the Mets. One of my many flaws (really) is that I am truly addicted to baseball and when I heard that Johan was coming to the Mets, I whooped it up in my rental car. The icing on the cake was that I was doing it in Atlanta, where the division rival Braves reside.
Anyway, here's a look for you and I'll try to deconstruct it for you in a future post.
January 23, 2008
After Effects 8.0.2 & Quicktime 7.4
Michael Coleman, who is Product Manager for After Effects has posted some important information about the new release which includes P2/MXF support.
Also, Dave Helmly got the scoop on me and listed the other fixes in the release as well.
This important release DOES NOT coincide with the release of Quicktime 7.4. Unfortunately, this QT release has some problems with AE and rather than hold up our release any further, we went ahead. We're hopeful that the Quicktime team will address some issues found in a subsequent update, but in the meantime, I would steer clear of the latest release of QT.
January 18, 2008
Do you use Avid Xpress or Liquid?
As a guy who informally held the title of "Mr. Liquid" prior to working at Adobe, it is somewhat weird but exciting to be talking Adobe's new rebate program for owners of Avid's Liquid, Liquid Pro or Avid Xpress users.
January 15, 2008
January AENY meeting to be big
We've got a great line up of speakers and technology for our January meeting. It will be one to remember and I hope that you'll join us if you're around NY on January 24th at the Pratt Institute on 14th street. You can get all of the details at the AENY website
My Foyer has become a Studio!
Most of the guys are going, "Wow, cool!" The ladies on the other hand are probably going, "Ewww!" I tend to lean towards the latter, because I have to clean it up in the end.
Why am I doing this? Adobe has some great stuff coming out later this year and I've been asked to contribute. Hopefully, you'll find this stuff not only exciting but also very useful!
January 14, 2008
Another Top Finish for Production Premium CS3
Gary and the gang over at Videoguys.com do a yearly review of the top 10 most influential products over the past year. I'm happy to say Production Premium CS3 took the top spot over some very worthy competitors. Check it out at Videoguys top 10 for 2007
Photoshop Elements for Mac
Ahh, this is a bit old already (January 10th), but worth noting that Adobe has announced that we're bringing Photoshop Elements 6 to the Mac.
January 11, 2008
After Effects 8.0.2 almost ready
The big news on this release is the implementation of MXF in After Effects. This is huge for people that are using P2 footage and doing some compositing. Jim from AENY has been playing with a beta and has been pretty happy with it thus far. Since I don't have a P2 camera (hint hint Panasonic! ;-), I haven't taken the time to download it. So... be patient a little longer and soon After Effects CS3 will have native support for Panasonic's P2/MXF format!
January 9, 2008
Upcoming NY area events
I will be joining Matrox next Thursday (1/17) for two events showing off their hardware in conjunction with Production Premium CS3. If you're on the bubble for either Adobe or Matrox products, this is a great opportunity to get in front of the manufacturers and ask us some questions as well as see what the buzz is all about!
There will also be stops in Illinois, Texas, Utah, Washington, Kansas and Ontario! You can register for one of these events here: Matrox Hardware Advantage Tour
The following Thursday (1/24) will the first meeting of AENY in 2008. After Effects New York is getting ready for a big 2008 and you can help us kick off the new year right. Its a great environment for beginners and professionals alike and we always have some fun. Check out the website to learn about when and where: AENY.org website
January 3, 2008
A hopeful set of New Year Resolutions
Do these resolutions matter to you? Do they map to what you'd like to do more of next year? I can only speak for myself, but I'd desperately like to knock down a few of these this year and be better for it - on a creative level. Read on and let me know how what your resolutions are...
December 10, 2007
Year in review - Genesis Project best tutorials (Part 1)
During the course of the year, I've posted on many different subjects and topics as well as created several 'how-to's' and I thought it would be a good time to give everyone a single link to find (or discover) some of the 'best of'' during the past year. This post will focus on the best tutorial content. If I find there is reason for doing some other topics such as 'livliest discussion', etc., I will post again under a similar heading.
So, read on to grab some of the tutorial content that got a lot of downloads and comments...
Continue reading "Year in review - Genesis Project best tutorials (Part 1)" »
December 6, 2007
Premiere Pro 3.1.1 is now Leopard compatible!
Adobe just released the 3.1.1 update for Premiere Pro on Adobe's Update Manager today. If you launch your copy of Premiere Pro 3.1 and go under help, you will see an Updates button, select it and follow the prompts to download and install the update.
Continue reading "Premiere Pro 3.1.1 is now Leopard compatible!" »
December 4, 2007
Making Vista play nice - make it bend to your will
Recently, over the last couple of weeks, I have had a number of questions come at me about Production Premium's compatibility with Vista and whether users should be using it.
For the record, Production Premium CS3 is and has been Vista compatible since we shipped: Production Premium CS3 System Requirements
These questions along with work that I need to do this week led me to spend some time bringing my Vista machine up to snuff and prompted me to start making it act the way I want it to. So, I wanted to pass on a website and quick tips that I've picked up...
Continue reading "Making Vista play nice - make it bend to your will" »
November 28, 2007
Matrox Advantage tour
Just a quick note here that Matrox is hitting various cities and showing off the latest with their RT.X2 hardware in conjunction with Adobe Production Premium. Click on the link to see if they're coming to your neck of the woods.
I'm off to Chicago today to participate in tomorrow's event.
Matrox Hardware Advantage Tour
Adobe's Spectral editing still wows and amazes
Yesterday, I did some presentations of Production Premium at B&H photo along with one of our partners, Blackmagic Design. During the day, I presented Soundbooth three times, and each time I showed how Soundbooth has a unique way to edit audio. What amazes me is that after working for Adobe for nearly three years and showing it to thousands of people, it still gets gasps and oohs from the audience. While that's fun for me when I present I have to ask, "How long will it take for everyone to start using and understanding this fantastic approach to editing audio?"
Continue reading "Adobe's Spectral editing still wows and amazes" »
November 26, 2007
After Thanksgiving technology tidbits
I love Thanksgiving - I mean hey, what's not to like? Too much food, family, friends and deserts makes for a lot of goodies after the holidays. Here's some of my after Thanksgiving tidbits (They're not leftovers!) for you to peruse.
November 20, 2007
Do you Hulu?
Some time ago, I posted (like everybody else) about NBC withdrawing from iTunes and the possible media storm that could be brewing as a result. NBC shortly thereafter announced that they would be doing their own implementation of downloads and streaming. Well, the streaming part is here in beta form. Guess what it's based around?
November 18, 2007
Business and pleasure...
the pleasure part is really for my kids (and yours if you've got 'em). We recently put up some new pages focusing on Flash and on video and broadcast. I saw them a few days before they went live and they're really terrific. The broadcast pages really show some interesting data and if you're into trends, you'll definitely find some surprising (or not) information.
November 16, 2007
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Okay, maybe not, but this may be some people's reaction to Avid not showing up at NAB 2008...
Continue reading "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" »
November 12, 2007
Open GL on After Effects Mac
This news is a bit old, but in the spirit of providing it, I'll use the cliche, "Better late than never." ;-)
The latest update from Apple in conjunction with our After Effects CS3 update now gives OpenGl preview capabilities to Mac customers. PC users, you can read on as well in case you've never turned it on (because you've had it for a while), but Mac users rejoice because you've got another way to potentially speed up After Effects.
November 1, 2007
Premiere Pro 3.1 update now on web
Just a quick entry here to note that Premiere Pro 3.1 is available as an update to all current users. The 3.1 update introduces Panasonic P2/MXF support in addition to some fixes.
Macintosh: Premiere Pro 3.1 update for Macintosh
Windows: Premiere Pro 3.1 update for Windows
October 31, 2007
Upcoming NY area events
If you're in and around the NY city area, I'll be presenting Adobe Production Premium at the following dates:
11/12 - at TekServe. They are on 23rd street and a hard core Mac place. Guess what platform I'll be demoing on? ;-) Adobe will be there with BlackMagic Design, so a great lineup for the night
11/27 - at B&H. Partnering again with BlackMagic.
12/6 - at B&H. This one will be with Matrox and their RT.X2 and Axio platforms.
All of the above will have at least two seminar times. I'll try to post back here again and give you more information.
October 29, 2007
Apple Leopard and Adobe products
So with the weekend after Leopard ships, it's halloween and I'm sure we'll hear the isolated scary Leopard story with some application from somebody going horribly wrong.
I don't expect it to be Adobe that has these stories...I haven't been the first, nor will I be the last to post on Apple's Leopard. And just to be clear: I haven't gotten it yet or installed it.
Adobe has posted a Leopard Compatibility link right on the home page so navigate to the Adobe site and get it. Or, if the idea of immediacy appeals to you then you can download it here.
Adobe Leopard SupportThe quick version is that Adobe has been testing Leopard for some time and feel confident about our overall compatibility with Apple's new OS. However, we have identified a few issues that we plan to patch in a release slated for December.
October 20, 2007
I like Mocha
Like any New York sports writer, I can't resist a cute title in the hopes of making the back page. So no, I'm not talking about Starbucks and their latest confection...Rather, I'm talking about a great planar tracking system called Mocha AE from Imagineer Systems.
October 19, 2007
Premiere Pro 3.1 is here
Premiere Pro 3.1 which is a FREE update provides editors with Panasonics DV25, DV50 and DV100 - also known as DVC Pro HD. Checking out the Adobe forums indicates that the response so far has been very good and we hope that you'll be happy too. Simply go under Premiere Pro's help menu and select Updates - it should sense it and download it for you.
October 12, 2007
All things Photoshop in NY area
If you're into Photoshop (and really, who isn't?) and you want to learn more then let me mention two events (one a repeat) that focus on Photoshop and in the New York area.
October 11, 2007
Premiere Pro: more partners = greater flexibility and choice
One of the things that Adobe has done for some time is provide a software development kit, or SDK, to anyone who wants to develop a product to tie into Adobe products. When you consider that we're the only mainstream, broad content creation company around doing that, it is significant - both now and as we move into the future.
Continue reading "Premiere Pro: more partners = greater flexibility and choice" »
October 9, 2007
Adobe Elements titles hit the streets
The new packages are at your favorite CE store and they're sporting a new look. Chances are, most people who subscribe or read Adobe blogs with regularity aren't using these products, but I adjure you (ooh fancy word) - give them a look!
October 2, 2007
Great AIR application from eBay
Being somewhat of a penny pincher, I've used Ebay for buying and selling all kinds of things. However, I'll be the first one (okay, maybe you were the first) to say that the Ebay interface leaves something to be desired...
September 28, 2007
Want to produce a broadcast look but hate timelines?
Visual Communicator 3 is finally available and it is a great tool for those of us that want to create compelling videos without having to noodle on a timeline like Premiere Pro.
Continue reading "Want to produce a broadcast look but hate timelines?" »
Production Premium + Artbeats offer
A quick hit here for you. If you've been considering Production Premium CS3, we've sweetened the pot for a limited time, by working together with Artbeats to include some of their top royalty free video stock footage. Check out the Adobe.com store and of course the Artbeats website.
September 24, 2007
AENY - Brian Maffitt at 9/27 meeting
The man, the myth, the legend, the man whose name is easier to mispell than my own! Yes, that's right Brian Maffitt will be at the next After Effects New York meeting. Brian use to run a NY area group many years ago before Total Training took over the bulk of his time.
Regardless of your experience with After Effects, you'll want to see Brian present - he's a whiz and I've never seen him and not be excited about some tip or trick that I've picked up from him. AENY meetings happen at Pratt Institute on 14th street.
BTW - looking at the list of prizes to give away....lots of 'em...
September 20, 2007
NBC tries free online videos
A couple of weeks ago, NBC and Apple chose to part ways on delivering NBC content over iTunes. My blog post on it, NBC-The first of many sparked a few lively comments and the story continued to develop as the week went on...
September 18, 2007
Neat technology... pass it on!
Let's be honest here - we all love technology. It's one of the reasons that I love working at Adobe: you get to see a lot of fantastic things happening inside and outside of the company.
September 17, 2007
Fall Video E-Seminars
"Get 'em while they're hot!" Sign up is a straightforward process and hope to see you at several of them. Of course, we will record them and post them online for future on demand access.
September 12, 2007
YouTube and Adobe together with Remixer
If you use YouTube, you may want to try their new Remixer product...
Continue reading "YouTube and Adobe together with Remixer" »
September 6, 2007
P2 support in Premiere Pro + Audition 3.0!
There is a ton of announcements from Adobe today as we kick off both Photoshop World and IBC. The two bigs ones for me are the announcement of P2/MXF support in Premiere Pro and Audition 3.
Continue reading "P2 support in Premiere Pro + Audition 3.0!" »
This company in your future camera?
While on my way to Photoshop World, I'm reading through the latest copy of Photoshop User magazine and came across a news blurb that might be significant for video and film people's future. New technology isn't that surprising to us - heck we've been going from DV to myriad other codecs including HDV, AVC-HD and DVCProHD and we've been moving from standard definition to high definition. What's surprising here is the company that may be in your future. It's Kodak...
September 5, 2007
NBC - The first of many?
Like many of you, I digest a lot of news media during all hours of the day and for me the primary source is the internet and news feeds via RSS. Well, just a short while ago, NBC announced that it is not renewing it's contract to sell NBC programs via Apple iTunes in the coming year...
August 31, 2007
New hardware partner solution for Premiere Pro CS3
One of the things that I think is terific about Adobe's place in the market is our ecosystem of partners. It offers the customers more choice, more options, more solutions.
Continue reading "New hardware partner solution for Premiere Pro CS3" »
August 30, 2007
Photoshop World and IBC
Couple of 'largish' events are happening in the near future and I'll be at the less glitzy of the two. Either way, it's important for you to keep track of them so read on!
August 24, 2007
Flash and H264...together!
This week, Adobe announced and posted a Flash player that included H264 decoding, essentially adding a new video codec for playback. Flash 6 was the first video codec with Sorenson Spark. With Flash 8, we added the much improved on2 VP6 codec. In the meantime, H264 has grown in adoption and it seemed to make sense to add an open codec to the Flash platform.
So, if you're interested in giving it a test drive, mosey on over to Adobe's Lab website labs.adobe.com
As an aside, the thing that flabbergasted me was how quickly all of our customers knew about this! The independent artist that attended last night's AENY meeting as well as the large NYC broadcasters and everything in between. I guess 98% market penetration has that affect on people!
The all powerful shortcut
Or..."What people don't know"
This week, I got a chance to visit some fabulous broadcast clients and while I've got some thoughts that I'd like to share soon, the one that struck me the most is how many times incredibly talented people asked for features that already existed or didn't know about some keyboard shortcuts that would immediately help them.
Does this mean that these people aren't incredibly talented, intelligent and the like? Of course not! In fact, again and again we were all amazed at the quality and imagination that these artists do with our products. We're the pastels and they're wielding Adobe...I tipped my hat to many of them and wished I had their ability... sigh...
Still, it was interesting to learn that even what I would call the expert user can be so used to doing things a certain way that he/she is surprised and elated when they learn a better way.
So, with that in mind here are two of the common ones that some people 'rediscovered' this past week.
In After Effects, with your mouse over a panel, if you hit the tilde key "~" it will make that panel take up the whole interface. This is now true of Premiere Pro, Encore and Soundbooth as well. This is a powerful key, but especially for After Effects users trying to navigate amongst many layers.
Actions - Use 'em! One of the top features requested by some of the clients we visited was chiefly concerned with an easy way to create an alpha channel for compositing in other programs including After Effects. We still have work to do to make this as absolutely simple as possible, but this person wasn't aware of the common video actions folder that can be loaded into the actions palette.
What does this mean to Adobe? Well, for me it says two things: First that Adobe has several very mature products with new users learning these programs. They're missing out on what 'old hands' learned through the years. Another way to describe this is that Photoshop has over 500 menu items and it's a given that people aren't going to know all 500 of these items!
The other point is something I heard from someone who stated that we need to be making it easier on how to find the best way to do something through our various help items. As I am want to say, this had the ring of truth to it and I look forward to seeing how we can get you the information you need (contextually) as quickly as possible. The good news is that we're thinking about this so it will be interesting to see what happens to software in the future.
On that same note, let me mention about the new Bridge Home that is a part of Bridge CS3. If you haven't checked it out, you should since it can really help you now in learning how to do certain things. Click on your favorite product icon on the top and the interface will display a lot of the resources available from Adobe and other sources.
August 23, 2007
eSeminar today - new features in After Effects CS3
Nothing like a little last minute promotion for an eSeminar coming up.
Fact is, I've updated the hard drive in my laptop and slowly have been putting everything back together and today I finally reconnected my blog to Contribute CS3. I've got a lot of catching up to do as it relates to blogging, but in the meantime, I wanted to offer you a chance to join me in an eSeminar that will happen in just a few hours. It's all about new features in After Effects and boy, there are a ton of them in this pariticular release, so we'll be busy for the full hour.
If you're interested in registering for the seminar, please click here: eSeminar: After Effects CS3 - what's new!
If you miss it (and you won't I hope!), it will be recorded for future viewing as an onDemand presentation.
See you there,
Dennis
August 6, 2007
Ramblings, links and a surprise
If I were a betting man (and I'm not, just ask Las Vegas), my guess would be that you're only considering clicking on the link because of the surprise part of the title? Hmm? True, huh? That's okay, because I'm right there with you. That being said, there's a bit more inside than just a surprise (for me anyway) but you'll have to click on through to get there...
August 1, 2007
What is broadcast quality?
Believe it or not, this question was presented to me by one of the major broadcasters when they were in for a meeting at Adobe headquarters. "What is broadcast quality," they asked? Now the two gentlemen from the company we spoke with were very intelligent so they weren't truly asking the question, but rather to make a point. However, the question intrigued me.
July 31, 2007
Favorite new feature of Photoshop CS3?
I was thinking about a meeting with NBC the other week where we presented Production Premium CS3 to several of the graphics artists, art directors, artists, etc... After talking about the features and giving an overview of the suite, I started out by firing up Photoshop CS3 Extended.
Now, as you may guess, we are given a bunch of demo assets and you can then pick and choose which features to show off based upon your audience and what their needs are. Well, with NBC, you can imagine that it would be difficult to find a place to start. However it wasn't a problem. You see, I start out with the same feature in almost every presentation I do. It isn't the top 'ooh ahh' feature of Photoshop CS3 Extended. It's not even the top feature in the standard version of Photoshop CS3. At first glance, it's about the least sexy feature in Photoshop.
Yet, for me (and for people new to Photoshop), it's the best feature we've seen in a long time. Yup, I started out showing off the quick selection tool.
If you've read this far and you're going, "what is the quick selection tool?", then you need to keep reading. Here's why: it's my personal belief that one of the foundational things to learn when it comes to Photoshop is knowing how to use the various selection tools.
Until now, that was somewhat problematic. You've got your wand tool, the marquee tool, the polygon tool, the lasso tool, etc. There's been a quiet rumbling, a groundswell of discontent amongst amateurs and pros alike. You were saying, "Give us the uber selection tool, the magic selection tool!" John Nack and the team heard you and gave us the quick selection tool.
So, if you haven't given the quick selection tool a try yet, then perhaps it's time you did. If you haven't given Photoshop CS3 a try yet, well...then...what are you waiting for?! ;-)
July 24, 2007
eSeminar on 8/2 - are you ready for CS3?
I'm going to be honest here and say that I really want a lot of people to not only sign up but actually show up online at check out the latest eSeminar that I'll be doing. Why? Lots of reasons. Firstly and selfishly, it is like when I was a kid playing shows at bars or recitals: you like playing for a full house (even if it's virtual). How about that for honesty? Secondly, I believe in Production Premium CS3 and in my recent travels, I can't tell you how many people are looking for information about what it is, to see it in action and to ask questions (which you can do in this seminar). Lastly, it uses some great technology from Adobe that is based on Flash called Connect. If you have the Flash player (and you do) then you have all that's needed to use Connect.
So, how 'bout it? Join in the eSeminar by clicking on the following link:
July 23, 2007
Premiere Pro 3.01 posted
Quick hit here. Premiere Pro has a 3.01 update posted. It's so fresh, that it's not posted on the Adobe website, but by going under the help menu and running the updates command, you should have it show up. I'll try and come back to post a link if I can find one.
July 19, 2007
Soundbooth CS3 - have you checked out Resource Central yet?
Well I gave it a whirl and I have to say, I really like it. More importantly, I can see things that Adobe can or will do with it in the future. What is it? Read on...
Continue reading "Soundbooth CS3 - have you checked out Resource Central yet?" »
July 18, 2007
It's still about the story...
As a fan of JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, I thought I'd top off a long day at Adobe headquarters last week by catching an evening movie to unwind. I had just reread the sixth novel in preparation for the seventh and thought that it'd be nice to review the fifth at the movie house. Having struck out at catching the imax version, I opted to watch it behind the Fairmont after a quick bite for dinner. I wish I hadn't...
July 17, 2007
AENY.org - 7/26
After Effects New York is all about After Effects and our next meeting is coming up on 7/26 (a Thursday). If you're in the area, interested in After Effects or just like to hang out with cool people, you'll want to stop on by. Get all the details at the website.
July 16, 2007
Quicktime 7.2 - stay away for now...
Internally, emails sometimes fly about within Adobe. We use this as a way of keeping each other informed about the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm not sure which one this falls under, but it certainly isn't under 'the good'.
July 13, 2007
Premiere Pro Mac seminar now available on demand
Technology is AMAZING! I did an E-Seminar in the morning and now at the end of the day it's available as an on demand seminar.
So, if you'd like to see Premiere Pro, especially on the Mac, then click on the link below and check out the content. The time to watch this is a little less than an hour and will cover where Premiere has come from, where it is today and give you a good understanding of how it may fit for you. And it's all done on a mac, but PC users fear not, everything covered here is applicable for you too!
July 9, 2007
Upcoming tutorials (hopefully!)
Now, that vacation is behind me and I've gotten relatively caught up, it's time to get back into the regular schedule of blogging and creating tutorials that are focused on the beginner to intermediate level of creator. As a reminder, the purpose of this particular blog is to get people equipped and excited about using Adobe programs, to make hard to use programs easy and so on.
One of the most popular tutorials I've posted to date is the one that I called 'Plasma Fire' for lack of a better description. You can go to the original post HERE. Anyway, I'm still trying to build on that and hope to show you that I secretly have super powers!
I'm also continuing the tutorial that I called STRANGE PLANET. I'm having a tricky time making the rings of Saturn, but otherwise, I'll give you a quick ride through the solar system.
Both of the above may be considered intermediate, but I hope that won't scare anyone away as they will come with downloadable PDF instructions as well as the project file.
Finally, let me remind you again that we have a bunch of E-Seminars coming up and my next one is for Premiere Pro for the Mac. You can register for it HERE and I hope I'll see you there.
July 7, 2007
2D versus 3D audio editing
Even from the title, some audio/video people could be going, “Huh? What in the world is he talking about?” And no, I’m not talking about surround sound. My response: Why is this strange? Everything else is in 3D, why not audio editing?
July 6, 2007
E-Seminar for Mac Users - a chance to take a look at Premiere Pro on the Mac!
Premiere Pro on the Mac - it sounds sweet to the ears. To some it may sound like an oxymoron, but it is not! So, if you're a Mac user or perhaps just someone who wants to see Premiere Pro being demonstrated (that means you PC users!), come join me for an E-Seminar next Thursday, July 12th. Read on to register.
Continue reading "E-Seminar for Mac Users - a chance to take a look at Premiere Pro on the Mac!" »
July 3, 2007
Moving tutorial projects to CS3 versions soon
With Production Premium CS3 starting to ship, I will be moving my projects (this is mostly After Effects) over to the latest versions. Unfortunately, this means some of you may not be able to look at these moving forward, but I'll be doing my level best to include pictures and movies to give you an idea.
Continue reading "Moving tutorial projects to CS3 versions soon" »
July 2, 2007
Back from Vacation and just in time for Production Premium to ship!
Of course, only the second part is really exciting. As I and others have canvased the country over the last several months with early versions of the product, I can report that we have had nothing but terrific comments on this particular cycle. After Effects and Photoshop CS3 Extended are nothing short of tremendous, new applications like Soundbooth and of course our 'Back to the Mac' march that brings Premiere Pro and Encore back to the Mac with new features certainly makes for a terrific 'welcome back from vacation' present.
So, if you have been waiting for the release, your wait is basically over. Product will be available very soon and pre-orders will ship as soon as we have product.
Here are a couple of links for you to peruse if this is all news to you:
June 14, 2007
Going Dark (temporarily)...
I'll be taking a welcomed break from all things Adobe and kicking back in Charleston, SC with a whole bunch of beach/pool action. Hope to grab a lot of photos, read some books and of course, play with Production Premium CS3 and write up some tutorials...We'll see if I'm inspired enough to post while I'm away...
Exploring Shape Layers
Yesterday, I was at this small show in NY called ProMax BDA which stands for Broadcast Design Association (I think). The event is a showcase for all of the broadcasters to tout their design ideals and work. All of the big boys are there and it's quite interesting: especially the difference between what's acceptable here versus internationally. The quality of people at this show was very high and it was fun to talk and meet with many of them.
So, I was there with Aharon Rabinowitz from Creative Cow and AENY.org and we're talking about Shape Layers...
June 11, 2007
A Hidden Gem (for me) in After Effects CS3
So there I was last week, biding my time at the Jersey Access Group convention and was noodling with After Effects CS3...interpretation - I was making awful stuff. So, I was reviewing some other half baked compositions and then stumbled upon one of the most important new features in After Effects CS3 not mentioned in Adobe web pages.
You Tube is really letting me down today, but hopefully you see the video now...
Continue reading "A Hidden Gem (for me) in After Effects CS3" »
June 6, 2007
Some ramblings, whereabouts and whats coming
Tonight is another hit and run entry, but I still hope you'll find it entertaining and useful. But in order to tempt you to read on...ah well, I trust you.
Continue reading "Some ramblings, whereabouts and whats coming" »
June 1, 2007
Using Photoshop Filters on video
Every once in a great while, I have a few spare nanoseconds to actually fiddle with the software and the other day I thought, "What if I apply Photoshop filters to video?" The next question was, "Will that even work?"
May 31, 2007
Got E-Seminar?
If you haven't guessed yet, I'm from the NY/Metro area and I can honestly say we're pounded by vendors left and right to go to seminars. Ditto for LA. It's fun to go to them if you have a true interest in the product and can take a day off...or better yet - get paid to go! However, what if you don't live around a super metro area? What if you're the hot video professional in your area but you're it and you need to be kept informed? What's a video professional to do???
May 29, 2007
Some more new Adobe Bloggers
A quick hit as I'm traveling to NYC on the bus today (technology is amazing isn't it?)
Previously, I mentioned Dave Helmly and his Tech Table blog and now I'd like to introduce you to a couple more on After Effects:
Michael Coleman is the new product manager for After Effects and his new blog is called Keyframes (Kudos to him for an incredibly cool blog title) You can find him here: Keyframes
Next, my traveling buddy and After Effects aficionado Steve Whatley has started up a blog as well that you'll find handy. I can't speak for his cooking, but I can for his love of all things Adobe. Check it out: AfterEffectsCookbook
May 23, 2007
Visual Communicator 3 up on the Adobe Labs site
When I joined Adobe, one of the things I was immediately struck by was the amount of communication that you had to try and keep up on. The amount of technology, the number of internal people that you had to know, etc. One of my friends and coworkers called it, 'drinking from the Adobe hose.' By it, he implied that it was sometimes an overwhelmling experience. Well, two years later, it's no different and I found out just a couple of days ago that we just put up one of the exciting applications from the former Serious Magic company - Visual Communicator 3.
Continue reading "Visual Communicator 3 up on the Adobe Labs site" »
May 17, 2007
New Adobe video blogger coming online - DAV's TechTable
Dave Helmly has published his first entry on his blog, DAV's TechTable, and you'll want to check it out. Dave's blog will be focusing on hardware and technology and you'll see from his first post, that he dives in deep! So be sure to add this to your regular lineup of blog feeds!
This is a test...This is ONLY a test
Just like the Emergency Broadcast System, I am merely providing myself a test to see if I have successfully connected Contribute CS3 to my blog and to see if I can post this to the website...Time will tell!
Interested in seeing Production Premium? Come see an e-seminar!
I'll be giving an initial look at some of the features of Production Premium coming up later in May. It will be on Thursday, May 24th at 11AM PST or 2PM EST. I'll be showing off some of the features of After Effects, Photoshop Extended, Premiere Pro and Soundbooth, time permitting. All you need is a decent web connection and an internet browser. Hope to see you there!
Here's a link for you: Video E-Seminars
May 9, 2007
Are you thinking about waiting for Production Premium CS3?
Having worked with computers since…well since before most of you were born, I have talked to people about them for just as long. Having represented different software and hardware companies the following question continues to come up and will for the foreseeable future: “Should I wait for the next version?”
Continue reading "Are you thinking about waiting for Production Premium CS3?" »
May 2, 2007
CS3 conferences across the US
I've got to believe someone else has posted on this already, but I'll chime in regardless. As I've been traveling, I've gotten the same question again and again, 'what about training for CS3?' Of course there are a lot of answers, but one that may be coming to a city near you is Adobe itself.
In fact, I got that very question today at NYU's film school where I presented Production Premium CS3 and I'm ashamed to say, I forgot to mention this...
And then there were three?
In keeping with the tradition to try and make humorous connections to all things Genesis, the title of the above is a quote back to an old album from the progressive rock powerhouse called Genesis (aka Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks)
The question is this - has Harris/Leitch/DPS decided to quit the NLE market?
April 19, 2007
Categories - Tutorials and NAB wrap up
Just scrolling through some of the latest posts and realized that all of the tutorials on the blog have fallen off, so you know what that means - time for another post!
To reiterate, the focus (or at least some of it) is to help provide some tutorials to help, encourage and (most doubtfully) inspire some of you to take the next steps with some Adobe creative products. If you check out the links on the right, you'll notice a category for tutorials. If you're knew to Adobe blogging, then you're probably visiting my blog for the first time.
NAB is done for me and I had a nice easy day by just working the booth. Day 4 was easier and lighter, but I still bumped into a ton of customers, friends and other vendors. I did After Effects and had some fun talking to others. We showed Vanishing point, multiprocessing, shape layers, puppet tool, etc. etc...
It was a fantastic show and tomorrow it continues in a sense with your truly working at Broadcast Education Association (also at NAB/Vegas) tomorrow.
NAB days 2, 3 & 4
Sometimes the best of intentions can get way laid and such was the case with my desire to post something substantial each and every day of the show. In case you’ve never been to NAB, let me say that regardless of whether you are an exhibitor or an attendee, staying in Vegas tends to lead to staying up late and getting up early. My schedule has been pretty much get up at 5AM, get ready, work until the show ends, go to some vendor function and then get dinner and socialize. For an early bed kind of guy like myself, this is difficult!
Adobe has had some terrific meetings of substance with many major media companies. We spoke to ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, HBO, Showtime, Disney and the list goes on. As I mentioned in my previous post, there was a tremendous amount of interest in the Adobe Media Player. Additionally, there continues to be a seemingly huge demand for our traditional tools like Production Premium CS3. These same companies have a variety of workflows, on a variety of platforms and have a variety of needs. They like that we’ve got a bundle that is complete, integrated, open and can deliver content to any medium. Are you an Avid shop? Terrific! Oh, you use Final Cut? That’s fine, Production Premium CS3 works with those tools.
Here’s something that I hadn’t thought about before that puts the above into perspective? What’s the most used piece of software in video production? Answer – Photoshop.
Random notes – today, I’ve got no meetings and am having a ‘break’ by hanging out at a pod at the Adobe booth. If you’re visiting the show today, stop by and say hello.
April 17, 2007
NAB Day 1
All right, here's the quick summary on NAB Day 1 from a super narrow perspective - namely mine. That's not because I'm only talking about Adobe, it's that I was in meetings most of the day.
What's big? Adobe Media Player. The aforementioned meetings were with some big media companies looking for ways to distribute their media to consumers that is an engaging, rich experience. Oh, and one that's profitable too. You were kind of expecting that though weren't you? One of the cool takeaways for me was how interested independent videographers were in this technology as well. In our evening party, I chatted with some friends from the 4Ever group and they were very pumped on what the Adobe Media Player could mean to them.
The tools as you know, are on the Mac and public beta. This still hasn't prepared us for how well received the new releases are. All of the people I talked to were very enthused about the new capabilities and in the case of Mac people, very pleased that Adobe took the time to address their platform in full...
Let me point you to all the press releases for Adobe and you can pick what you might be into.
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/
Apple showed off Final Cut Studio 2 and their Proximity product now called Final Cut Server. Avid was at the front of the hall and talking up Interplay and showed off Liquid working with an AJA card. The Red camera had big lines all day, but will it end up being the Trinity of this year? I personally don't think so.
As you might imagine, many repeat offenders (people who come to NAB every year) bump into old friends. It's great to see friends again, regardless of where they worked and so I bumped into friends from Apple, Avid, Microsoft, etc.
The party tonight was great. Johnny L kicked us off but we had the comedic high jinx of Mark Randall and Karl Miller to entertain us as they talked about Adobe Media Player. Then we had a couple of customers come and talk up their work - both in Film in this case. The Orphanage and The Basement, the latter having worked on 'Marty' Scorcese films and the Orphanage did Superman Returns. When I see these guys work, I realize why I sell software instead of make a living using it. They're awesome and you should check out their work.
Now it's almost 11PM and I have to get up tomorrow and do it all over again. Day 1 was your typically packed day bookended by last minute set ups and late night parties. Day 2 will be shorter but just as packed.
Below is a link to see a few pictures. I'd put up more but it looks like my CF card is corrupt. It's a problem and now at 11PM it's ticking me off. Patience Dennis...go to bed.
April 16, 2007
Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects CS3 on Adobe Labs website
Shout it from the rooftops (even if John Nack beat us to it)!
If you're an existing Premiere Pro or After Effects user and are itching to try the latest and greatest, we've heard you.
As of this morning, we have published full trial versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects CS3 for both MacTel and PC.
Check out the Time Remapping feature in Premiere Pro - giving you awesome control on slomos with an intuitive interface. Flexbins is so simple and low key, you'll almost miss it - until you go back to Premiere Pro 2.
After Effects we discussed before so remember: Shape Layers, Brainstorm, Puppet Tool, Vanishing Point Exchange.
I tell you what I am most psyched about today: Our ability to output your projects to DVD, tape, FLASH, mobile devices and ipods. Lets face it: we live in a media saturated world and we want our media any time, anywhere and on any device. Welcome to the 21st century.
Download it, play with it, beat on it and tell us what you think - we're here for you.
April 15, 2007
NAB 2007 - a post before the madness begins
NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) is so big, so broad, so diverse, so international, that it’s like taking a visit to Disneyworld – you can’t do it all in one visit. So for me to try and post something here and cover even a fraction is too ambitious.
What I will try and do is over the next few days try to give you some idea of what’s going on at least from the Adobe side of the house and what I may see in the few nanoseconds that I’m not in a meeting.
At a minimum, I think this will be an intriguing year for NAB. Adobe is going back to the Mac with all of its video applications, so that’s a big deal in and of itself. For me – it’s not about Premiere Pro, though I’m excited for Mac users everywhere to get Dynamic Link, Clip Notes and more on the Mac. Rather, it’s about being able to offer a solid suite of tools for the video professional regardless of whether they’re using Final Cut, Avid or Adobe. Perhaps that sounds coy, but I’m serious. I think we’ve got the best suite of tools that are integrated and that will work great with whatever NLE tool you choose to use. Do I want Premiere Pro to be used – absolutely, but I also believe that users want to get work done and learning a new NLE takes time. So – you need Photoshop Extended and After Effects, and probably a couple other of the products in the suite, you pick up Production Premium and they will use it with Avid or Final Cut. I’m okay with that.
All right, get back on track or I’ll have to name this post, ‘Musings on going back to the Mac.’
We’ll have some announcements (just like everybody else), so Monday ought to be full of NAB news. Check out CreativeCow.net and DigitalMediaNet.com for all the latest. I’ll try to post something as well.
As kind of a closing nugget let me give you a vague sense of what NAB is like if you’ve never been to one.
- It’s over 100,000 people from all over the world and takes up three separate but connected convention spaces (North, Central and South halls each with two floors). I would guess that there is well over a million square feet of exhibit booth space and it is so big that industries are put together to make it more manageable.
- It’s JAMMED with people for three days and then lightens up considerably on Thursday. The Adobe booth is usually wall to wall people for three days solid. Honestly, that’s the most fun when it is crazy busy, because you’re talking to people that love creating content and want to know more about your products. It could be even crazier this year since we just announced CS3 and lots of people will be seeing Photoshop Extended for the first time.
- Las Vegas is also generally pretty packed. It’s one of Vegas’ largest shows of the year and so all the restaurants are hard to get into and the shows get sold out. (But I got tickets to see ‘O’ this year)
Anyway, I’m optimistic that this will be a great NAB not only for Adobe but for the business. New tools, new trends, new hardware and a world that is thirsty for content makes this NAB one to remember.
Welcome to sleepless days and nights…
April 11, 2007
After Effects CS3: More memory and multiprocessing!
MORE MEMORY AND MULTIPROCESSING – YEAH! For the everyday After Effects user, you can never have too much memory. With Windows XP and After Effects 7, we have a limitation of 3GB of total memory. Pretty much the same with the Mac. Now both desktop platforms are embracing more CPU cores so the demand for memory to feed that processing power is even greater. Enter After Effects CS3. With the latest version, After Effects supports 3.5GB of memory per processor core. Plus, we’ve taken a crack at better processing efficiency. In After Effects CS3 you will see a new preference entitled, multiprocessing. If you have a multi-core system, you’ll be able to get multiple frames rendered at once. Plus, the engineers tell me there that we’re ready for quad and eight core CPU’s as they come out. All this comes at a terrific time as we see more and more people working in HD which has so much more information (data) per frame than SD.
Random notes – working on some beginner tutorials, that I hope you’ll like. Specifically working on a simple timeline that shows you how to take your PSD layers and space them out in 3d space and animate a camera through it.
www.secondlife.com – I haven’t tried it but the thing that freaks me out is the amount of real money being spent there – crazy!
April 5, 2007
Did you know about the pending death of analog TV?
That’s right, the government has mandated that all analog television signals must cease and desist after February 17th, 2009. What does it mean for you and for the industry? Read on to get started on the answer…
For you, the impact could be absolutely nothing or suddenly not getting any TV. What kind of TV do you have, what kind of service (cable, satellite, airwaves)??? All of that may play into what options you have. For most of us, we already have a TV that is at least digital ready if we’re not already watching HDTV right now. Note to self – be content watching NY Mets games in standard definition (SD) when they’re playing away…
For those of you who may not have as many options, who have an older TV and plan to keep it, well…you may be in for a surprise come 2009. In the link below, there are some bits about options that are available to you, but I imagine this is not to important for most of you.
That brings up another point. Will the 2009 date stick? It might not and it depends on several factors. Still, analog TV transmission will stop and probably sooner than later. The reason why? Lots of money. My understanding is the government is motivated to reclaim the bandwidth because they can auction it off to the highest bidders. Remember what your dad said about ‘them not making any more land so become a land owner?’ – the same thing holds true for frequency space and data transmission inside it!
How does this affect broadcasters and our industry? Again, I think it affects us a lot. Broadcasters must retool a lot of equipment to become DTV transmission compliant. Add to this the move to HD (separate from DTV) and you realize there are an enormous amount of capital expenditures taking place. The industry is going thru a perfect storm of change with analog to digital transmission, standard definition to high definition and finally a multiplication of delivery formats: three screens instead of one.
Take a look at the bright side? There will be more jobs and opportunities for creative professionals than ever before. Oh yeah…
http://hometheater.about.com/od/televisions/qt/feb172009date.htm
11 days until NAB and counting…
on an eclectic note - found a photo of a tower that looks remarkably like the old After Effects logo
http://www.dtvutah.com/images/tower/towerlg.jpg
April 3, 2007
After Effects CS3: Brainstorm
If you want my opinion (maybe you don't ;-), there are two engineering teams within Adobe that never fail to deliver some exciting new enhancements and features to their products. Those teams as you might surmise are the Photoshop and After Effects teams. Why they are always ‘on’, I’m not sure, but their continuing success and foresight are direct contributing factors to their market share and importance among the creative community.
So... I want to chime in as have many others on some of the new features that I like most about Adobe’s latest iteration of After Effects. I'll hit them one or two at a time. My list is in no particular order but hopefully will give you a couple of new nuggets of new information to noodle on as we wait for After Effects CS3 to become a public beta.
BRAINSTORM – Every writer has experienced writers block and so it stands to reason that every media creator has experienced a periodic lack of creative juices (or perhaps it is caffeine?) Anyway, Brainstorm is a terrific tool to help you sort thru all of the permutations of any set of parameters you may choose to modify. This is also one of the tools that really can help users of all levels. From the beginner who is just trying to figure some things out, to the true everyday professional animator, Brainstorm can offer new ideas and styles to just about anything. If there are ideas in Brainstorm that you like but aren’t relevant to what you’re doing, you can save it out as a preset to be recalled or used later. With Brainstorm, you can also control the amount of deviation from the original, so as you hone in on what you’re looking for you can decrease the percentage of variation.
The basics of how it works is that you select any combinations of parameters that you want Brainstorm to work on and then simply click the brainstorm icon, which is located near the graph switch on the timeline. That will bring up the Brainstorm interface and from there it's a intuitive and visual process for refining and selecting your choice.
As I mentioned before, I think this is a feature that will make beginners get excited and productive with After Effects, but by no means do I think everyday professionals will ignore this. Why would you, when Brainstorm can help you get that extra 5% which will make the difference between a good comp and a great one.
March 29, 2007
After Effects users - remember your Cycore!
The most common issue I find from beginner to intermediate AE users is the fact that they haven't installed everything that After Effects comes with. With AE 6.5 and 7.0, you have three distinct plugins that you should be installing into your system: Cycore Effects, Keylight and Color Finesse. For the beginner, Cycore is the most handy of the three because it's a bunch of fun effects, many very useful, some not and some just eye catching.
It's on the After Effects CD, just pop it in and click 'install 3rd party plugins'.
March 27, 2007
Today's the day and it's kuler to use kuler
Though there was some leaked information from Amazon Canada over the weekend, the CS3 launch event is happening today in NYC and being broadcast online, so be sure to tune in by clicking on the link below...
Also, the kuler application is just plain fun and if your a designer, just plain useful. We've added a Widget if you're a Mac user. If you haven't heard about what Kuler is yet, check it out by visiting.
On an unrelated note, I'm trying to work up some tutorials and more substantive articles, but with the biggest launch of creative software in a long time (some might say ever), you can imagine how busy it is over at Adobe.
Happy CS3 launch day,
Dennis
March 20, 2007
On the local (NYC) front - AENY.org
If you're around the NY area and crazy (or just enthusiastic) about After Effects, then come join us on 3/29 for the second AENY.org meeting. AENY stands for After Effects New York and our first meeting had over 110 people join in.
We give away lots of prizes (and good ones too!) and there's free food. I don't think I need to add anything to that, except to say that March 29th will also have a special guest from Adobe showing off something very near and dear to our hearts.
Find out when and where by clicking on the meetings link on the website
AENY.org
March 16, 2007
The Film Look
As soon as I saw this month’s cover of Studio monthly, the first thing I did was inwardly sigh, because as a person in Adobe’s video division, I get asked about the ‘film look’ just about every time we get up and speak in front of a group of videographers. The second thing I did was smile, because I knew I had something to write about today!
So, (pause) the ‘film look’… Even when I write the words ‘film look’ I get an inward grimace and my chest heaves a bit, but for most people, the film look is the ultimate in taste, style and it is just plain cool. It’s a phrase that is bandied about because people view movie making as the ultimate in popular culture and it’s fun to say. The phrase is also assigned to new equipment everywhere and no doubt this NAB will be much the same. I can almost imagine the subtle marketing message that if you buy product XYZ, you’ll be the next ‘insert favorite filmmaker here’. Ahh, but I digress.
So, (pause) the ‘film look’. I can’t claim to be an expert on this, far from it. I’ve never shot film, am not the best guy with a camera and because I work in software, I tend to focus on what you do with your material after you get into the computer. However, I can discuss some of the myths and common approaches to get the mystical film look.
So, (pause again) the ‘film look’. Here’s what a lot of people think the film look is – 24 frames per second, which happens to be what most movies frame rate is. Video in comparison is at 30 frames per second (okay, 29.97 for NTSC!) The lower frame rate creates a different presentation to the eye, where the motion in the scene can become more dramatic. I remember seeing it dramatically portrayed when seeing Gladiator with Russell Crowe. Many of the fight scenes just ‘popped’. The motion was dramatic, not as smooth as you find in video. Taking out 6 frames per second does make a dramatic difference. Most likely Gladiator looked the way it did because of several other things, but I remember it jumped out at me at the time. Now many action movies do the same thing so we’re more accustomed to it.
Another true aspect about the ‘film look’ could be the idea of progressive frames as opposed to interlaced. Again, film (and some video formats) shoot in progressive frames where one frame (or cell of film) contains all the information of the picture. With traditional video, frames are interlaced where the odd numbered lines are captured and then the even numbered lines. The two together form a frame of video, each separate piece is called a field…mmm. Terminology...
So far, the above two are what most people attribute to the look of film, but my tender experience has told me there is a lot more to it than that. First off, there is the depth of field which is what the Studio Monthly review actually spends a fair amount of time on and shows with pictures (for simple minds like my own). The short version is that video cameras keep everything in focus whereas film cameras can keep certain objects in focus while having others out of focus. The advantage of this approach allows filmmakers to focus your attention on what they want you to see. The idea of focus/defocus in a picture is often called the bokeh effect in photography. It’s Japanese for blur. Check it out on wikipedia.
One other big part of the movie look is the aspect ratio. We think about it less often as more of us experience wide screen televisions, but even so, there is a difference. Traditional TVs or standard definition was 1.33:1 or 4:3 (4 inches horizontally for every 3 vertically) and newer HDTV or widescreen TVs are 16:9. Film has moved through a lot of changes over the years but the number I always remember is 21:9 or 21:10. Here’s a neat link that goes through some of the aspect ratios on film. http://www.dvdaust.com/aspect.htm
Without making a long post even longer, let me begin to wrap up by pointing out other characteristics that I understand influence the overall picture that we see when going to a typical Hollywood movie. Not only are there the aspects of the camera itself, such as lens, apeture, shutter speed, focal length and more I’m sure, but there is the film itself which has a specific grain.
There’s some interesting things to discuss here and I’ll hope to post another entry on some thoughts on what we can do to simulate the film look with traditional video.
BTW – here’s the link to the article from Studio Monthly, which is really a review about Redrock Micro’s M2 35mm lens adapter. http://www.studiodaily.com/studiomonthly/currentissue/7749.html
March 8, 2007
You've heard two are better than one
Today, Adobe is announcing that there are not one but two flavors of Adobe's Photoshop product. You can get some of the details by reading John Nack's Blog;
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/03/announcing_two.html
I've just started to wade into the deep waters of Photoshop Extended which is the flavor I'm most excited about, because it really adds a tremendous amount of features for video workflow and production. As John alluded, we can't dive into details right now, but most peoples response has been, 'wow, we knew you were going to make improvements, but we never imagined it would be as good as this.' Gotta be honest, that makes us all feel really good. If for some reason you're not aware, you can test drive Photoshop CS3 Standard today by going to the Adobe Labs website.
It's a cornucopia of public beta Adobe products.
Back to Photoshop CS3 Extended - it's fun...really fun and if you're a video or motion graphics person, you're going to want this version instead of the Standard. John also alluded to 3D and I think it will be a huge change in the workflow for specific market segments.
When you ponder about Photoshop, perhaps you're like me in thinking, "What else can they possibly add to this program?" Photoshop CS3 Extended answers those questions and then some. Perhaps the best part is when I spoke to John in the Fall, he was already hard at work thinking what CS4 would have. That's good for Photoshop users everywhere.
Cheers,
Dennis
March 4, 2007
After Effects Experts to look to...They’re Jedi Masters and I’m a Padawan learner
Poor allusions and metaphors are part of the whole package with me but they’re fun too. Allow me to continue with my Star Wars metaphor in order to point you to people who can really teach you about After Effects.
Aharon Rabinowitz “Qui-Gon Jinn” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qui-Gon_Jinn – Aharon is really a fantastic guy who happens to not only be a great AE artist, but also a great teacher – just like Qui-Gon Jinn who was portrayed by Liam Neeson. My experience has taught me that this is a rare combination indeed. Better yet, most of his work you can find for free at the CreativeCow.net forums. I just checked out one of Aharon’s tutorials on basic expressions (a scary topic indeed) and walked away from it thinking that I should dive into it again. Note to self – stop saying that about every Adobe product. Aharon was instrumental in helping get the After Effects New York group started. Check out http://www.AENY.org if you live around the NY area. You can find Aharon on http://www.creativecow.net under the AE forums
Dean Velez “Mace Windu” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_Windu
Besides having a matching hair do, Dean does share a certain quiet passion (okay if you know Dean, he’s not quiet!) that characterizes Mace Windu in the Star War movies. Dean is also about motion graphic design, he doesn’t focus on visual effects as much. He has that instinct about creativity and he teaches how to harness your creativity to create within After Effects. Dean runs a training site at http://www.TheAnvel.com He has a number of CDs that you can buy. I like them because it not only gives you all the goodies, but step-by-step PDFs that walk you thru creating what you see.
Brian Maffitt “Yoda” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda
If the title of “Mr. After Effects” had to be handed out, you’d have to give it to Brian. Brian started selling VHS tapes about After Effects with version 3.0. If you were going to learn After Effects, investing in one of his Total Training products was almost a prerequisite. Along the way, his company grew and now encompasses all Adobe products and a few others as well. You can find Brian’s product offerings at http://www.TotalTraining.com. Total Training products are encyclopedic in their approach in that they cover just about everything depending on which products you look at. The After Effects collection currently covers about 60 hours of training. That’s right, a week and a half of work just to get through it all.
Are there other companies, resources and individuals that will help you? Definitely. Lynda.com and DigitalMediaNet.com are two that readily come to mind. Just type After Effects Tutorials in your search engine and see what pops up.
May the force of AE be with you my friend,
Dennis
January 26, 2007
Welcome!
Greetings! Welcome to the Genesis Project. Here you will find little nuggets of information, tips, tricks, tutorials, links and solutions for video production. The purpose of this blog is to help people become proficient at Adobe applications, focusing especially on the apps that live in Adobe’s Production Studio bundle.
Okay, let’s start off with the obvious question: Why the Genesis Project? If you’re a Star Trek fan, you will point to ‘Project Genesis’ from the Star Trek II & III movies. The idea of Project Genesis was to create life from lifelessness. Wikipedia has a listing on it (they seem to have one on everything!) If you’d like to read up on this, here’s the link: Project Genesis
Consider also the Bible’s first book, called Genesis. Genesis literally means beginnings as in “In the beginning…” and it’s along these lines that I dreamed up the name. You see, when I came to Adobe I knew non-linear editors through and through, having worked with Premiere Pro, Avid, Final Cut and Pinnacle’s Liquid for years. However, I knew very little about After Effects, Photoshop and a number of other Adobe applications. I was a beginner when it came to those applications. During the next year, I applied myself to learning the fundamentals of these applications, particularly After Effects and Photoshop. I can’t say that I’ve mastered them, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m productive on them. Even more importantly, I’ve got a passion to tell others how easy it is to create things with these applications and thus the reason for this blog.
So, if you’re a beginner to an intermediate user, looking for new ideas or just need to figure out how to do something, I hope to be able to provide you some reasons to come back and visit.