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One of our newest 2 day training classes, Google Sketchup, will be offered  at our Orlando training facility November 5th & 6th, 2009.  We are offering a special price for the November class!

Google's Sketchup is an amazing 3D modeling program that has users from all walks of life from professionals to first timers.  Whether you're an architect, civil engineer, or filmmaker, you will be astounded at what Sketchup can do for you.  And the best part?  It's one of the easiest programs out there to learn and use.  With Sketchup, you can build everything from basic 3D models to entire scenes with a virtual walk-through, and it allows you to add your 3D elements into your video projects.

Other features of Sketchup is the ability to facilitate the placement of models in Google Earth, which is a great tool for video producers when trying to figure out where your shadows lie at a specific time of day during a video shoot.  Another great feature is the ability to use the 3D Warehouse, which lets users search for models that are created by other users and lets users contribute their own models to the warehouse.

There's no limit to what you can create with Google's Sketchup.  There is a limit however to our class size, so call today to reserve your spot!

Photoshop is an invaluable tool for video editor, and I've always been a big fan of teaching the Photoshop basics as it applies to video editing.  One basic Photoshop skill is the ability to cut out a company logo so it can be placed as a 'bug' or integrated within a video project to help brand a business.  You can read up on a Photoshop tutorial for creating a glass bug on how to actually do this.

For myself, I like to keep things simple.  I've always touted using the file format .png to when saving graphics for import to/from Avid Media Composer or Final Cut Pro.  This keeps things relatively simple, and you do not have to worry about merging layers or flattening the image for things to look right.  Of course, you still should save a .psd copy in case you decide to make changes to your original Photoshop file.

For simple things, you can cut your logo using Photoshop.  It's best to save the image with a .png (portable network graphics) extension.  That's it! 

However, there is one annoying element that may come into play when saving graphics that contain a transparent background.  When saving a selected image with Photoshop, the selected area overlaps with the transparent background.  This is translated as 'white' when it is brought into Avid Media Composer or Final Cut Pro.  This means you'll end up with a 1 pixel white edge around your image.  For simple things, you may never notice.  However, if you are a perfectionist, or if you graphic is keyed over a dark scene, it's quite noticeable and it looks poor.

Click the image for a closer look.

Here's an actual 'blown up' example of the GeniusDV logo imported into Avid Media Composer.  You can see hints of an edge that has come over from where the selection and the transparent background meet.  Again, this may not be noticeable in certain occasions, but this has grown into one of my pet peeves.

 

In order for a text super to be readable, the text should (obviously) stand out from the picture that you composite it onto.  In some cases, you can manage this on a one-off basis: if you have a single title, for example, you can (and should) allow the specific picture for the title slide to dictate how you style your text.

Other times, you'll want to have more confidence that your text will stand out regardless of what picture happens to be underneath it.  For example, you might use subtitles, series titles, and multi-purpose templates like lower thirds over a variety of pieces of footage.  For that matter, imagine that the video under your title pans from, say, a (dark) mountain over to (bright) sky: you need for your text to be readable over both settings.

Traditionally, folks have improved the contrast of their text using treatments like heavy, high-contrast outlines (see, for example, many subtitles); drop shadows; and heavy-handed styles like bevels.  All of these approaches can be useful, but there are a couple of strategies that might allow you to make more subtle choices that are still visually acceptable.

Read on for some theory and a couple of tips ...

When bringing a Photoshop file (psd) into Final Cut Pro, the file will import as a sequence. The layers will be nested as a sequence when placed into another sequence. What this means is that you can double click on the Photoshop file, and it will open as it's own sequence, with each layer occupying it's own track. This gives you the ablity to animate the individual layers. In the case of the psd in the example below, the text layers all come onscreen from different directions, and the other elements all dissolve on over 10 frames on a 5 frame stagger.



Personally I would have  deleted the text layers, and placed a LiveType file overtop. Click here for more information on using Photoshop files in Final Cut Pro.

Every piece of video software comes with a boatload of keyboard shortcuts to help speed up your workflow.  Many shortcuts are different, but there are some that are pretty consistent between different software.

Compositing Work
If your software involves some sort of Canvas (where you arrange different parts of an image), some shortcuts are pretty standard across applications like Photoshop, Final Cut, Motion, and After Effects.

• Space Bar - Forget those Hand tools - simply hold down on the Space bar, then click and drag to move your Canvas around.  This is true in Motion, Photoshop, and After Effects - but remember, if you press the Space Bar without doing the click-and-drag, you'll start your timeline playing.
  
  
• Shift - Think of the Shift key as the "constraint" key: it's kind of like Snapping, since it locks you into precise, pre-defined actions.
  
  • When you're moving something on the Canvas, holding down Shift constrains it where it only moves horizontally or vertically (and sometimes on a diagonal).
  • When you're rotating something on the Canvas, holding down Shift locks you into 45-degree increments.  This is especially useful if you want to turn something on its side or upside down: you don't have to eyeball it if you're locked in with the Shift key. 
  • When you're resizing something on the Canvas, holding down Shift normally locks the layer in to keeping the same proportions as you resize it.  In Final Cut, the opposite is true: since Final Cut keeps the proportions by default, the Shift key would release you from the proportion constraints.
    
• Option (Alt) -
  
  • When you're moving something, holding down the Option key (before you click) usually "peels off" an exact copy of the layer you're moving, so that you're moving the duplicated layer and leaving the original layer in place.
    
  • When you're resizing something, holding down the Option key locks the middle of the layer in place.  It's like pulling from both corners at once.  You can use Option and Shift at the same time to resize from the middle and preserve proportions at the same time.