PULSE | National Day of Prayer with Leeland
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Here are two spots I recently completed for the National Day of Prayer coming up on May 5th. I’m really excited about this event.
For more information, visit UniteTwinCities.com
Remedy Drive Live
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As a guy who spends significant amounts of time on both sides of production – sometimes creating content, and sometimes receiving content – it’s always fun to run across something I played a part in but lost track of before it was out in the wild.
Today, I ran across Remedy Drive’s Live tour promo that uses a bunch of footage that my crew shot at Lifelight back in 2009. Basically, if the footage was shot outdoors, at night, or matches action with multi-cam or a big jib, we probably shot it.
Either way, it’s great to see all our work cut into a really nice edit. And I’m glad I was able to make a contribution. Check it out.
…And now that you’ve seen a glimpse of their show, be sure to check out the new Light Makes a Way EP when it drops on May 2nd. I’m excited to see where the band heads with their new members and tour this spring.
PULSE UWO Summary
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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
IPS Intro to DSLR Video Course
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I am really excited about hosting another intro to DSLR video course this summer through IPS. More details will follow as the date gets closer, but the most important thing to know at this point is that space is limited to only 16 students. So, watch the promo and then sign up to reserve your place today. Official details are below.
General Information. IPS is delighted to offer one of the best Introduction to DSLR video workshops on the planet. This workshop brings together master producer Carl Larsen and creative genius Laura Clawson to give you a learning experience like no other. Both of these videographers have lived on the cutting edge of video technology for some time, and are excited to spend a week giving you the best of what they know.
Dates. June 27 – July 1, 2011
Class location. Calvary Community Church | 1200 Roosevelt Road, Saint Cloud, MN 56301
Tuition. $785 – Save $100 by registering early!! (Regular price $885 after May 16, 2011)
Hotel. $325 - Homewood Suites by Hilton | 115 37th Ave N, Saint Cloud MN 56303
Workshop Leaders. Carl Larsen, Laura Clawson
Product Review: The Best of Premiere Pro
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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
