Random notes from my first “real world” Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 edit

I was fortunate to get my hands on an early release of Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and an edit that came up last week seemed like the perfect place to test it out. It wasn’t an overly complex edit, a 3 minute piece shot on RED with interviews and b-roll. I cut the offline and it will then go to an After Effects artist for some fancy graphics and Baselight for color grading. As I was taking notes on the new version of Premiere Pro for an upcoming review I thought it might be interesting to just publish those notes in a blog post about Premiere Pro CS6. Here they are.

Make your iMac matte without spending money or applying any screen protector

For many years, those of us who prefer the Mac platform and a high-quality matte display have had to avoid Apple screens that are glossy (highly reflective) or use an invasive screen protector, which I dislike. Since several years ago, Apple began offering iMac computers exclusively with an ultra reflective screen, many have avoided the iMac in favor of either a tower (Mac Pro) or a Mac Mini. Many ProVideo Coalition readers will recall two of my 2011 articles which covered how STAFF HDTV/Alta Definición from Guatemala re-purposed its older Mac Pro tower for its DaVinci Resolve grading suite, and then found better performance in the editing room with a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac Mini together with a Pegasus disk array. At that time, they chose the Mac Mini over the iMac since they wanted matte monitors (not glossy). I have just become aware of a free, simple, non-invasive, and easily reversible approach to making an iMac become much more matte without using any screen protector.

Making a Matte Painting with Elements in Motion in After Effects

In the days of early motion picture making the art of “matte painting” was a process of actually painting with oils on a plate glass that was then shot in position in front of a scene on location or in the studio where the film would be exposed by the combined images through the camera’s lens, creating an illusion that the actors int eh scene were in a totally different location or that the surrounding set or location was enhanced greatly. This process has evolved over the years and with modern day digital compositing and illustration/animation techniques, there’s little that can’t be created or replicated with computer graphics or manipulation. In this video tutorial, I show you how I used simple photographic components, combined with masked elements extracted from the original footage and re-timed - all using After Effects & Photoshop, along with some CG elements from a simple plug-in call Psunami from Red Giant.

NAB 2012: SpectraCal

One little booth I happened to come by as I walked the NAB show floor was SpectraCal. A bright red screen with a little device attached to it was all that I needed to stop by and check it out. SpectraCal was showing their solutions for measuring and calibrating accurate color on your client and grading monitors. Why do you need an accurate monitor? Are you using DaVinci Resolve?

A More Intuitive 3-Way Color Corrector for Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

The 3-way color corrector gets a lot more powerful and easier to use in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.

After Effects CS6 Tutorial: Exporting 3D Camera Tracker Data to Cinema 4D

One of the major new features in After Effect CS6 (which we previously previewed here) is a built-in 3D Camera Tracker. Rather than track a specific object or point, the 3DCT automatically tracks hundreds of points in a clip, and uses that information to reverse engineer where the camera was during the scene. This opens up all sorts of interesting workflows.

Product Review: Tiffen Dfx v3 Video/Film Plug-in

Tiffen has released the latest version of their popular sophisticated filter effects. Unlike most other plug-in effects for After Effects, Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro that often cater to creative whimsy and visual effects, the Tiffen Dfx v3 Video/Film Plug-in offers more real-world simulation of glass filters, lens effects and film stocks in a sophisticated and easy-to-use UI. This filter set will bring back memories of film cameras and glass filters we’ve all be familiar with in days gone-by, but with much more control, finesse and options beyond your wildest dreams!

AJA announces T-TAP, the US$249 palm-sized, self-powered bridge from Thunderbolt to HDMI or SDI

As I have covered in great detail in several prior articles here in ProVideo Coalition magazine, the most complete and most reliable method of connecting your critical video monitor to your computer based editing system is via a professional a/v i/o interface, like those Thunderbolt models now offered by AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, and now even MOTU. However, most of them are more than what many editors need today in the tapeless acquisition, file-based era. Often editors no longer require any audio or video input at all, since the material primarily arrives in file-based format. That’s why AJA decided to design and build a simpler, lower-priced, self-powered, output-only device called the T-TAP at NAB 2012. The outputs are SDI and HDMI. This article will cover all of the specs (even some vital ones that AJA hasn’t yet published), applications, recommended connections, and define whether the T-TAP is appropriate or not for use with HP’s DreamColor monitor.

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