December 22, 2010
We’ve recently been following the work of Gareth Edwards on the feature film Monsters, since we really like what he has been able to create using such a small crew and inexpensive hardware and software, including Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium.
We’re especially happy to see him win the British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for technical achievement for this work.
Gareth first came to my attention for his work on Attila the Hun in creating large battle scenes involving entire armies by using After Effects to composite together several copies of a small number of actors shot against a green screen.
Since then, I’ve been blown away by his compositing work on a smaller scale (though in the much larger context of a feature-length movie). The thing that impresses me most in Monsters isn’t the alien monsters themselves; it’s the way that Gareth has replaced a huge number of signs in his location shoots with digitally created signs that are appropriate to the story. After Effects and Photoshop have been used to create a fictional world that is so convincing that even someone looking for the seams can’t find them. This makes the movie seem so real that the story isn’t interrupted by any jarring moments where the audience is reminded that they’re watching an artificial construction.
Here are a few articles and videos about Gareth’s recent successes using Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop in television and feature film work:
December 17, 2010
Andrew Devis has recently released a couple of excellent tutorials on color correction on the Creative COW website:
Primary color correction is the adjustment of all of the pixels in the frame. Secondary color correction is the adjustment of only some of the pixels in the frame—such as desaturating only the reds in a specific object defined by a mask.
Andrew’s tutorials go far beyond just showing the UI controls in a specific piece of software. He also gives great advice that’s relevant to color correction with any tool, such as working in a room with constant lighting and frequently resetting your eyes to real-world neutral by looking away from the computer screen.
There’s more information about color correction in general and Color Finesse specifically on the Adobe website:
By the way, be sure to download the recent Color Finesse 3.0.3 update, which addresses major issues for Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder and minor issues for After Effects.
December 11, 2010
The fine folks at Peachpit Press and Video2Brain have just posted some sample videos from the 14+ hours of video training in After Effects CS5: Learn By Video. This DVD and book provide an introduction to After Effects that is designed to bring you from the beginner level to the intermediate level, as well as to warn and educate you about all of the common pitfalls and gotchas in After Effects.
Here’s a list of the free sample videos that have been posted, with links to pages in After Effects Help and related documents for more details on each subject.
(Note: The size of the image in these free sample movies is much smaller than that of the full version on the DVD, so the text in some UI items in the free sample videos is sometimes hard to read. Also, the free sample videos don’t include the source files that are included with the DVD, so you’ll need to use your own assets to follow along.)
The After Effects CS5 Classroom in a Book (CiaB) is available.
This book introduces After Effects through a lesson-based approach, using step-by-step instructions to guide a beginner through the common tasks and workflows in After Effects.
To give an idea of what the book offers, the folks at Peachpit Press have made a few samples available for free. I recommend checking them out.
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Here are links to the free samples, as well as some links to places on the Adobe website where you can go for more information about the same subjects:
Note: Because these samples don’t include the source files that are included with the book for you to follow along, you’ll need to use practice files of your own. |
December 8, 2010
This is a good time to install updates for CS5 Production Premium applications, since a lot of significant updates have recently been released:
Oh, and don’t forget the After Effects CS4 (9.0.3) update.
To check for updates, just choose Help > Updates in any application in the suite.
December 7, 2010
Richard Harrington and Ian Robinson have recently released a new book, Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5: Studio Techniques. Right away, I should mention that I’m not an unbiased reviewer of this book, since I was its technical editor.
Here’s a quote from me that appears on the back of the book: “Anyone who wants to know how to get the most out of Creative Suite Production Premium to plan, create, and deliver motion graphics work should read this book.”
Yep. That about says it.
This book differs from a lot of other great books in that it isn’t just about After Effects—or even just about Adobe software. Ian and Richard spend a lot of time covering Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and Flash, but they also cover type design, planning a project, shooting footage for use in motion graphics work, and other aspects that aren’t about a specific piece of software. I especially appreciate how often they show how to use practical, in-camera effects to create results that would be much more time-consuming to synthesize in software.
The advice from Richard and Ian is obviously from experienced professionals who know what it takes to get good results on tight deadlines and limited budgets. These pragmatic workflow tips based on experience go far beyond what we’re able to provide in our reference documents for our software.
The fine folks at Peachpit Press have made a few samples from this book available online to whet your appetite and give you an idea of the great content in this book. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s in those samples and where you can go for more information about the subjects covered in them:
December 2, 2010
UPDATE: We just heard from Joesoft that the 1.0.5 version of Hear is available, having emerged from beta testing.
After Effects CS5 and Premiere Pro CS5 both can crash due to a conflict with the Joesoft Hear audio enhancer.
We’ve just gotten confirmation from Joesoft that they’ve released a beta version of Hear that doesn’t conflict with After Effects CS5 and Premiere Pro CS5. We’re recommending that our customers who also use Hear install the 1.0.5b2 (build 490) beta version of Hear.
Let us know on this forum thread (not in the comments on this blog post) whether this solution works for you. We on the After Effects and Premiere Pro teams will monitor that thread for feedback, and we’ll make sure that the folks at Joesoft get the information that they need, too.
When reporting back, be sure to let us know whether you’ve installed the Premiere Pro CS5 (5.0.2) update and After Effects CS5 (10.0.1) update.
