Adobe Video World 2016 Day 1
Highlights from Day 1 of Adobe Video World 2016:
- A close look at the new features coming to Premiere Pro CC
- Audio mixing order of operations, and submixes in Premiere Pro CC
- Organizing a Premiere Pro CC project by story and theme
- A quick After Effects CC tip for label colors
- Tangent Ripple demo, and on-the-go color workflows
MORNING
All the New Things You Might Have Missed (A Deep Dive Into the New Features of Premiere Pro)
"New features" can be a confusing term when it comes to Premiere Pro CC. That's because Creative Cloud users are always stuck between recently added features and just announced features. I'm sure Final Cut Pro X users would enjoy being in such a position right about now. It is a nice place to be.
Richard Harrington began this session with a demo of the new features coming to Premiere Pro CC revealed at IBC 2016. And when the title says "deep dive," it isn't lying. This was a 3-hour long session!
Top of the list was the new keyboard shortcut map coming to Premiere Pro CC. Editors will be able to assign program and panel specific shortcuts with the new visual keyboard map.
The ease with which Richard could search, view and assign keyboard shortcuts with the new layout was impressive. Definitely something to get excited about in the next version of Premiere Pro CC! Richard said it was time to retire the FCP 7 keyboard layout in favor of custom keyboard shortcuts. This new keyboard shortcut map will certainly encourage users to do so.
Live Text templates allow editors to edit After Effects composition text layers in Premiere Pro CC. In the next version of After Effects CC, users will be able to save Live Text templates to a standalone file format. This new format will be self-contained, and will give Premiere Pro CC editors the benefits of Live Text templates without needing an After Effects CC subscription.
Richard walked through the process of creating a Live Text template from scratch, and saving it in the new format. Fun fact: the Save to Text Template feature is located under the Composition menu, at least in the beta version.
Whether you're adding captions for accessibility or for viewer engagement on social media, open captions have come a long way in Premiere Pro CC. In fact, they've become somewhat of a legitimate alternative to titles. A new Edge Color tool for Open Captions is coming in the next version of Premiere Pro CC.
Richard showed how adding this stroke to open captions will give editors the confidence their text will be readable on any background.
New audio effects will be moved over from Audition CC to the next version of Premiere Pro CC.
Richard gave a real-life demonstration of the quality and performance improvements these new effects have. He was able to fluidly make adjustments with real-time playback. These new audio effects will be a godsend for editors with projects that need a little audio work but don't require kicking over to Audition.
One of Adobe's key strengths is the integration between Creative Cloud applications. I will admit I am guilty of being slow to adopt Creative Cloud Libraries into my workflows. But sitting in on Richard's class made it impossible to ignore the efficiency and accessibility of asset sharing with Libraries. And not just between applications, but also between users. Library folders can be shared with collaborators, and assets will be synced between applications.
Richard also enlightened us to the fact that Adobe's fonts, and everything in the Market (found under Assets in the Creative Cloud Desktop App) are fully licensed, and ready for you to use in your projects free of charge, including broadcast.
An Editor’s Guide to Better Audio in Adobe Premiere Pro
Cheryl Ottenritter and Jeff Greenberg were an audio training dream team. This session was well-attended. Perhaps an accurate indicator of how much audio work is now expected of video editors.
Order of operations for audio mixing can be confusing. Thankfully, Cheryl provided a helpful guide based on her own audio workflow.
Here's an insanely practical tip, and not just for audio tracks. First, you ought to be naming your audio tracks. Then, instead of re-naming them at the start of every project, save the project with your named tracks and use it as a template. BRILLIANT.
Submixes were a big part of Cheryl and Jeff's session. In Premiere Pro CC, audio tracks can be grouped together, and controlled as one track. For example, multiple dialogue tracks can be assigned to a single submix. Editors can then make global adjustments to all the tracks within the submix. To learn more, visit Advanced Mixing in Premiere Pro.
Another benefit of submixes is being able to quickly export audio stems or groups of audio tracks. Cheryl and Jeff recommended always exporting a mix minus (a mix without narration) to help future-proof your audio work. Having isolated dialogue and music tracks will let you make simple edits without having to re-open the entire project.
There are several ways to adjust audio levels in Premiere Pro CC: clip gain, clip volume and track volume. Cheryl and Jeff explained the hierarchy between these options. It's important to note that, unlike clip volume keyframes, audio track keyframes do not move with clips, and they are not deleted when trimming clips. To learn more, visit Adjusting Gain and Volume in Premiere Pro.
Cheryl gave her recommendations for mixing audio for the web. It's easy to monitor your audio in Premiere Pro CC with Loudness Radar by TC Electronic. This is an effect that can be applied in the Audio Track Mixer panel. Remember to set your Peak Indicator to -3 in the Loudness Radar settings when following Cheryl's recommendation for the web.
For fine-tune audio editing, turn on Show Audio Time Units under the Timeline panel menu. You will notice the timecode display switch from video frames to audio samples. The will allow subframe audio trimming in the timeline. It's a fun way to mess with other editors too.
AFTERNOON
Documentary Editing Techniques for Adobe Premiere Pro
One of my favorite things about Christine Steele and Ashley Kennedy was their ability to articulate some of the "softer" or non-technical aspects of video editing. The storytelling principles they taught were valuable because they applied to all genres of video editing, and not just to documentary.
Christine and Ashley taught the foundation of a powerful story — a story that works — is a universal human truth. For example, hope, fear, addiction, etc. These are things that anyone and everyone will be able to relate to. It's this universal human truth that editors should keep in the forefront of their minds while logging, organizing and editing their footage.
Both Christine and Ashley demonstrated their own methods for project organization in Premiere Pro CC. Christine prefers a marker-driven editing workflow, while Ashley likes working with bins and subclips. Each method has its own benefits and limitations, and each method should be used based on the needs of a project.
Christine took the concept of selects sequences a little farther by editing her selects into "story beats". These sequences were then organized into bins that follow a 3-act story structure: beginning, middle and end.
All of Christine's and Ashley's tips were fixated on workflow efficiency in order to better focus on story and theme. It's true, things like project organization and metadata can be feel like a time-suck. But the reality is it's a huge time saver on the backend, the actual editing, that is.
After Effects Essentials for Premiere Pro Editors
I stopped by Eran Stern's session only for a brief moment, and I'm glad I did! I learned that you can select multiple After Effects layers based on their label color.
This got me thinking, it would be nice to have this in Premiere Pro CC. Lo and behold, it's already there! You can even assign a keyboard shortcut for Select Label Group. I really enjoyed finding this little gem. It will certainly come in handy when using label colors to organize types of footage.
Think Like A Colorist: Doing More With Color In Adobe Premiere Pro
I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say that Robbie Carman is one of my favorite trainers when it comes to color. Similar to the audio session with Cheryl and Jeff, this session was an overview for editors who are also expected to wear a colorist hat. The thing I enjoyed most about Robbie's color session was his ability to relate the technical aspects of color correction back to the role of a colorist.
For an editor, scopes are probably the scariest part of color correction. Robbie explained how read the waveform, vectorscope and RGB parade in Premiere Pro CC, and the degree to which they should be used. In the end, your eyes should have the final say on your color grade. But it's important to remember that your eyes can play tricks on you. That's why using the scopes, and taking frequent breaks to rest your eyes is important.
Robbie also said if he was stuck on an island where all he did was color grade with only one scope, he would choose the RGB Parade.
Robbie had a convincing pitch for the Tangent Ripple, a color grading control surface. It's compatibility with the Lumetri Color panel was highly intuitive, and the tactile response looked incredible. The chief benefit of using the Tangent Ripple, or any color grading control surface, is the ability to continue making adjustments without looking away from the image. At $350, the Tangent Ripple is a worthy investment for editor-colorists.
Robbie demonstrated Looks, part of the Adobe Capture app, which can generate LUTS based on pictures taken with your phone. Looks can be synced to Premiere Pro CC via the Libraries panel. (Another reason to use Creative Cloud Libraries in your workflow!)
You might not want to use looks as a finishing color workflow, but they can be an excellent starting point for your color grade. Not to mention a great way to capture and communicate color inspiration with collaborators.
EVENING
We closed out Adobe Video World Day 1 with a happy hour hosted by Film Impact, maker of high-quality transitions for Premiere Pro. This was the first event of the day where all attendees could gather together and socialize. It was a great time for meeting with friends, both old and new!
Premiere Bro's attendance at Adobe Video World is sponsored by Adobe, Future Media Concepts and JK Design.
