In Premiere Pro and Premiere Elements, the work area defines a portion of the timeline for preview purposes. Hitting the enter key activates playback from the beginning of the work area bar to the end. Any rendering necessary to play that segment is also performed.
There are several ways to set the work area bar. The most cumbersome is to drag both the in and out point of that bar to the desired location. The fast and easy way is to place the CTI at the desired start of your work area and press "Alt" + "[". And you guessed it, to set the end point of the work area, press"Alt" + "]".
You can set also the work area bar by zooming into to the desired view of the timeline and then double-click the work area bar. The bar will automatically fill the current view of the timeline.
The folks at Videoguys.com really embrace the idea of being a value added reseller. Beyond offering a wide array of video production hardware and software at great prices, the web site is packed with articles and information to help you best utilize the latest tools at the lowest cost.
Here's the link to recent article which lays out everything you need to know to build your own Quad Core workstation. Why build your own? Because you can save a lot of money - minimally hundreds of dollars.
Note too that they caution against using Windows Vista: "As we've posted in other area of our website, we simply can't recommend Vista at this time. The 32 bit version is a recourse hog that brings nothing to the table for video editing. Vista 64 bit is more powerful, but good luck finding drivers for your hardware. It's not a pretty picture. I know that someday (hopefully soon) I'll be singing the praises of Vista 64, but for now we still stand by our recommendation / warning - DO NOT RUN VISTA for your NLE workstation!"
While this isn't a shortcut specifically for Adobe Premiere Pro, it does apply to every version of Windows since 3.1.
By holding down the "ALT" key and pressing "TAB", you can automatically switch to other open programs on your Windows computer. If you have several open at the same time, repeatedly pressing the "TAB" key will allow you to cycle to the program you wish to switch to.
This comes in very handy when for example, you need to quickly switch between Premiere Pro and Adobe Audition.
Here's the link to a tutorial at Wrigley Video Productions which demonstrates how to create a moving track matte in Premiere Pro.
In the Mograph wiki a track matte is defined as "an element used in Adobe After Effects or Premiere Pro to mask out portions of a layer. The masking is calculated by either the alpha channel or luma values of the element used as a track matte." Track mattes simply the process of combining different layers of video. That operation is commonly referred to as compositing.
While the tutorial demonstrates how to use the track matte to blur the face of the athlete, track mattes have many other uses. One common application is to use Premiere's titling program to create a text track matte, and then fill the text with another video layer.
That's all much easier to grasp by watching the video tutorial. Have fun!
I was lucky enough to attend Dan Selakovich's presentation at NAB a couple of years back. He gave an excellent talk on the semiotics of shot composition and the role it plays in storytelling. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, it's a real treat. His engaging and often humorous presentation is reinforced by numerous examples from Hitchcock, Welles and Polanski.Selakovich also hosts a website, dvcamerarigs.com to promote his book, Killer Camera Rigs You Can Build. Aside from the money-saving, do-it-yourself designs contained in the book, Selakovich also offers basic operating techniques for each rig. Here's an excerpt on his camera stabilizer:"...go right to your sink and fill a glass with water right tot he brim. Now, try to walk briskly without spilling a drop. This is basically how you want to walk with your Stabilizer. Knees bent, body centered over your feet, walking heel-toe-heel-toe."(In case you're unfamiliar with camera stabilizers, here's an article on the Steadicam, the original camera stabilizer.)
The availability of the book can be a little confusing. Amazon incorrectly claims it's out of print. However, the latest edition is available directly from Selakovich's web site in digital form. Check it out.
The simplest way to move clips from the trim window to the timeline is to press the "comma" key.
The "," key inserts your clip at the location of your CTI (Current Time Indicator) in the selected video track. Note that if the CTI is located on a clip, that clip will be split at that location with the new clip inserted there.
Here's a follow up to an earlier post on the "Ken Burns Effect". Documentary filmmaker, Eric Breitbart offers thoughtful criticism of the films of Ken and Ric Burns in the New England Review.
Breitbart's essay also indicts PBS's predilection for "a cinema of reassurance that provides a temporary safe haven in a troubled, uncertain, culturally incoherent world."
"Documentaries often challenge conventional wisdom in a way that's unsettling or provocative, but you're not likely to find yourself anxious or upset after watching a Burns documentary; the experience is like eating a good, satisfying turkey dinner . . . sometimes even more than one. Of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with films that don't challenge any prevailing assumptions. The problem is that, over the past fifteen years, this style of safe, expensive, non-challenging filmmaking has imposed itself as the only way high-end public television documentaries are to be made—particularly those funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities or the National Endowment for the Arts, the main funding sources for cultural and historical programs destined for PBS."
Breitbart provides damning evidence of the departure of public broadcasting from its original mission as outlined by the Carnegie Commission in 1967 to provide a "forum for debate and controversy" and a "voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard". While there are notable examples of local public broadcasting productions which embrace that mandate (albeit typically smaller stations), those producers can only dream of having the production resources enjoyed by the brothers Burns.
Here's the quick way to jump to the razor tool. Just hit the "C" key.
The razor tool comes in handy when you need to split or trim a clip within the sequence timeline. By holding down the "ALT" key, you may split only the video or audio portion of a clip with the razor tool.
