On March 4, the Kolf Arena had students lined up hours before doors opened, and by 7PM the room seemed full with the crowd stretching all the way to the back. The event was a blast, the bands were awesome and the crowd was stilled as Nick Hall shared the Gospel message.
For more information, visit pulsemovement.com
According to the product description, Eran Sten’s The Best of Premiere Pro is an intermediate to advanced training course aimed at Premiere Pro editors who want to further their skills within the application. However, after reviewing the training myself, I think that description if far too narrow. Instead of focusing on just one application, The Best of Premiere Pro is really a best practices and integration guide for editors using Adobe’s Production Premium or Master Collection Suites in CS5.
In terms of background, I’m a Final Cut Pro editor who has spent hundreds (yes, literally hundreds) of hours trying to fall in love with Premiere Pro CS5. Nearly every project do relies heavily on three things: multiple source footage file formats, Adobe After Effects, and Apple Final Cut Pro; so with all of the industry buzz over the past year about native file editing, dynamic link, and red digital cinema integration, I finally decided to give Premiere Pro a serious look when I was returning home from a high-profile DSLR video shoot a couple months ago. I simply didn’t want to deal with any more transcoding to do my edits within Final Cut Pro – and – having the rough equivalent of Automatic Duck built into Premiere only sweetened the deal for me.
Unfortunately, as time went on, I came to the realization that I still really liked editing in Final Cut Pro. It wasn’t so much that there wan’t any good training on Premiere Pro out there, but instead, that I knew all the little tricks and techniques in Final Cut Pro that made me a really efficient editor in that particular application – and there wasn’t much training out there to fill that gap for me in Premiere. So when Eran announced that he was making an advanced training series for Premiere Pro focusing on efficient workflows and techniques, I contacted him immediately.
Overall, the best of premiere pro is filled with shortcuts, suggestions and design tips that I thought were a helpful additions to my existing base of knowledge on the application. Eran covered clearly some of the less understood aspects of the application such as using After Effects plugins in Premiere, Sync Lock toggle switches, and transparent video. He even pointed out a couple undocumented keyboard shortcuts along the way. Personally, I really appreciated the multicamera editing segment which contained an audio trick that easily saved me the cost of training on a recent project.
Over an hour and a half of the training, roughly a third or the overall content, is dedicated to the two bonus lessons on working with Dynamic Link to complete a Blu-Ray project edited in Premiere. This was the most useful segment of the training for me even though it didn’t spend a lot of its time in Premiere. As an editor familiar with the apple suite, many of the authoring tricks I have learned on that platform were easily translated into Encore and Soundbooth knowledge because of these segments.
In terms of criticism, I thought the training focused a bit too heavily on plugins, which felt a little like a product placement video at times. I would have rather hoped to see that time spent on more Premiere specific tricks instead. But, on the other hand, the plugin section did make me aware of the BCC Stabilize plugin, which offers in-editor shot stabilization – something I thought I had lost in moving away from FCP and it’s built in smooth-cam functionality.
Additionally, editors who are hoping for The Best of Premiere Pro to be an accessible course for beginners are going to be frustratingly disappointed. Although it is not abundantly clear on the product description, or in the sample videos, this is clearly not a beginner’s title – and working knowledge of the application as a prerequisite.
So, in the end, what does this Final Cut editor think of this Premier Pro training? I like it. And more importantly, I think it fills a sizable gap in training available on the subject. Even though I’m still not sold on fully moving away from Final Cut Pro, The Best of Premiere Pro only furthered my confidence that when I need to, I can edit video quickly and efficiently using the tools available Creative Suite 5.
For more information, visit sternfx.com
Pulse Oshkosh was simply amazing.
Months of prayer, Ministries coming together, 5000 in attendance, and 800 responses to the Gospel. I am so grateful to be a part of what God is doing across the college campuses of America.
Photos credits: IPS Photo, Rowan Gillson, Jocelyn Gillson, Matt Derrit.
I’m glad I was able to play a small role (shooting the first two lapses) in 9Mark’s new promo video working with Edd Blott, Andrew Lisi, and Lukas Naugle. And just in case you’re wondering, it was 8 degrees out with a windchill, when I shot it.
You can find additional information on Reverberation and a link to the book here.
Jack’s Christmas – Canon 50D 50mm F1.8 1/125 ISO 250
Last year, I began the tradition of taking individual portraits of the children on Christmas day. First of all, this serves as an excellent chronology of the family, and it’s an easy day to remember. I’m also a sucker for shooting anything with the bokeh of Christmas lights in the background – especially when we find a vintage shirt of mine that fits our little Jack.
The interesting thing for me – technically speaking - is that I always shoot them under constant illumination. I do this for a couple reasons – on a practical level, I only own one flash, and professionally, I’m simply more comfortable with a traditional 3 or 4 point video lighting kit.
Is this a bad approach? I don’t think so. If the final result looks great, I’m not one to critique how you get there. Additionally, a similar technique has already been used for such high-profile projects as Megan Fox’s Esquire cover and online spreads for the New York Times. Now, I know I’m simply snapping stills of my kids here, but I’m becoming increasingly convinced that constant illumination and/or a combination of available light will be the future of lighting for still photography. With cameras like the Red One, Epic, and others on the way that shot moving images in raw format, I think still photography – especially lighting for portraiture – is going to become a game of shooting for motion and extracting a still in post in the next couple of years.
In the mean time, I’ll keep happily snapping portraits of my children with my video light kit and probably pick up a softbox and extension cord for my flash.
