Adobe Community: What is the best workflow for me, need heavy post production

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1. Dave LaRonde,

Mar 29, 2011 12:06 PM in reply to garek007

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I recently filmed a video where a person was in front of a green screen.

Using what kind of camera? What's the footage's acquisition codec? I'll assume that you're well-versed in lighting for green screen.

I'd like to skip straight to AE because I know it better and I have a lot of work there to do. The problem is, I can't hear the audio and it plays real slow.

It appears you need to know a little more about AE, specifically about RAM previewing:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3878526689cb916558 66c1103906c6dea-7ec9a.html

It would also be good to know what you mean by "skip straight to AE". How are you capturing this video you shot?

Is it possible to start in AE or should I start in Premiere?

I don't know what the rest of your project is like, but for just about any project I've ever heard of, the workflow is to capture video, edit the video, and export the parts that require work in AE. The fact that you have a ton of green-screen clips doesn't have a lot of bearing on that workflow.

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2. garek007,

Mar 29, 2011 12:43 PM in reply to Dave LaRonde

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Hi Dave, thanks for your reply.

No I am not well versed in green screen lighting. I know it supposed to be lit a certain way, but I dont' even have lights.

I tried AE and the RAM previewing wasn't working too well. It's too slow.

When I say "skip directly to AE" I mean that I would like to bypass Premiere altogether and just work with my clips in AE. I tried it though, and it is cumbersome, because my clips need a lot of work.

I did not "capture" the video. I don't have a capture device. I plugged the camera in and grabbed the MSI clips.

The camera is a Sony HDR-CX550V

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3. Dave LaRonde,

Mar 29, 2011 1:03 PM in reply to garek007

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Dude, you're in a world of hurt.

You need to learn Premiere, and how it ingests your video clips. Proprietary Sony multimedia encryption ain't nothin' to fool with. Maybe your pals running Vegas can do it for you.

But here's what is really going to be a kick in the shorts: you shot a ton of clips on green screen using a consumer HDV camera and no lighting! The two surest ways you can torpedo a successful green screen! If you're expecting professional results, don't hold you breath.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

It sounds like you really, really need to begin at the beginning with AE. And here's a good beginning:

http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2010/01/getting-started-with-after- eff.html

The same thing applies for Premiere, but since I cut in Final Cut Pro, I'm not all that familiar with it. I can, however, direct you to a trusted training source:

http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0132618494

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4. garek007,

Mar 29, 2011 1:07 PM in reply to Dave LaRonde

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Dave,

Thanks for your help, and your concern BUT.

My company doesn't really have the budget for lighting at the moment so it is what it is. I used to use Premiere a while back, but I'm rusty. I'm pretty good with AE, but I usually use it for animation, not video. I think I can make this look OK with AE, but yes, it will probably take a lot more time.

I think I've figured this out though, Premiere is working for me for now.

The one thing I don't know is about capture. Are you saying I should not have simply copied the clips from the camera hard drive to my computer? It is working so why can't I do it this way?

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5. Rick Gerard,

Mar 29, 2011 9:06 PM in reply to garek007

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You should be using Premiere to sort out and trim the good takes. No need to spend time in AE working out a good key for shots you're never going to use in the final production. Basic cut editing in Premiere is very easy. Just eliminate all the bad shots then trim the good ones so that you've got a second or two of lead in and lead out for each shot.

Since your source footage is highly compressed it would be a good idea to take the rough cut from Premiere directly into the Adobe Media Encoder and render a new movie or movies of your "good" takes to a 10 bit lossless or nearly lossless codec. AE will handle these frames much better than the original camera footage, all of your work in AE will go smoother, the final renders will be quicker, and you'll end up with a better final product. The only downside is that lossless or nearly lossless 10 bit codes will eat up a bunch of drive space.

If your company doesn't have lights, and you haven't got any experience shooting green screen footage it would have been much less expensive in the long run to bring in an experienced videographer with a couple of lights so that your footage would have been better. You could probably have brought in someone with experience for around $500 for a half or even a full days work. You would have learned how to shoot footage for keying, you would end up spending much less time in post making the shots work, and, the $500 you spent would have been easily paid for by the time saved in the project. Think about that for the future.

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6. garek007,

Mar 30, 2011 8:21 AM in reply to Rick Gerard

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Rick,

Thanks for the advice. I would LOVE to hire someone else to do this. But some ******* here bought a video camera and now I'm obligated to at least see how well I can do this. I am enjoying the challenge, but in the end, bit will probably have been better if we had brought someone in.

500$ though, not so sure. This is San Diego, and nothing is cheap here, but maybe I'll look into it. I would like to learn how to do this myself, and yesterday my boss did gie me the go ahead on getting some lights.

I did trim a lot of the video in Premiere yesterday, then exported an uncompressed AVI, which was HUGE! It was around 44MB.

I'm not familier with 10 bit lossless, do you have any links you can send me so I can read up?

The camera came with a CD. I'm going to install the software and see what comes off of the camera using the software. Maybe it will be better since I don't have capture?

I'm confused about your second paragraph still. How would I go from Premiere to AE if not rendering it out again? Were you assuming I was using dynamic link?

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7. Szalam,

Mar 31, 2011 10:28 AM in reply to garek007

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I'm going to assume you meant to type 44GB instead of 44MB because 44MB is very small for an uncompressed video file.

If you're using CS5, you shouldn't have to worry too much about using the footage straight from the camera as a lot of the issues with long GOP codecs were dealt with. I would suggest (in lieu of Dynamic Link) that you import your Premiere sequence into AE. It'll come in as a composition with all your cuts intact so you can work on each shot seperately and you don't have to take the extra step to render.

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8. garek007,

Mar 31, 2011 10:44 AM in reply to Szalam

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Yes sorry I meant GB.

How is dynamic link different than importing the premiere file?

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9. Szalam,

Apr 4, 2011 12:50 PM in reply to garek007

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When you import it, it just makes a composition in AE that matches the edit in Premiere. When you dynamically link it, you get one layer that is your Premiere timeline and any changes you make in Premiere will show up in AE. There are other differences (such as memory requirements) I suggest you read the help. The AE help pages are actually quite good.

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10. garek007,

Apr 4, 2011 1:20 PM in reply to Szalam

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Thanks all, this has given me the information I need to proceed. Much appreciated!

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What is the best workflow for me, need heavy post production

Mar 29, 2011 11:17 AM

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