Movie editing softwares - Adobe Systems

Movie editing softwares in the digital age has given amateurs and professionals alike an opportunity to publish their work. But where do you start if you don't know anything about them. Well, here's my list of softwares and reviews that will help you get started. Let's start of with the most common and most used, non linear editing softwares from Adobe Systems.

ADOBE SYSTEMS

Adobe Premiere Elements

If you absolutely have no idea of where to start, this is probably the best software to take. Premiere Elements is the most user friendly (as they say) video editing software that gives you features which will make your work look like a pro! The interface will be a bit strange for you at first but when you get the hang of it, you'll be rendering in no time.

Premiere Elements comes can come with your Adobe Photoshop Elements as a discounted bundle so if you are interested in photo editing too, you might as well get the bundle and save some money.

Premiere Elements doesn't just work with camcorders, it works also on AVI ,MPEG , Quicktime's MOV, and Windows Media files. It works with phones, camcorders, still cameras, and even unprotected DVD's! And with version 7, you can now upload directly to YouTube. Talk about ease of use, this will probably save you time in the long run.

Premiere Elements has a long list of features that can be added to your editing arsenal such as scene indexing, audio conversion, transitions, drag and drop edits and many more useful and fun features. Also new in 7 you can view and sort video clips and still photos easily and quickly.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Some would argue that Premiere is not "Professional" but I disagree, it's not how fully featured a product is that makes it professional, it's how the product is used. First off is the new features Adobe has added:

• Multiple nested timelines
• YUV processing
• Three point colour correction
• Sample-editing level audio editing
• ASIO hardware for multi-channel output
• Surround sound mixing

There are also several workflow enhancements that lessens users changing of tools every time so you can concentrate more on editing than thinking about which tool to use. Previous versions of Premiere converts YUV colour to RGB when editing and converts it back again to YUV when rendering, but with Pro, it actually works directly with YUV saving a bit of time and quality. It also supports multiple nested timelines which for someone who is working with editing for awhile would find very useful when working with too many clips. Easy toggle between sequences and a collapsible and expandable project window windows explorer style.

Pro now has better audio-mixing capabilities and it integrates well with other Adobe applications such as After Effects, Encore, Photoshop, etc.

Multi-publish feature is one of my favorites. I have clients who wants several file types as an output. Rather than tediously rendering from one file type to another, you can actually set it to render into several formats such as VCD, DVD, SVCD, web, etc., without third party plugin!

However, there are several issues that Premiere Pro has to deal with on the next release. It doesn't support Apple platform as of now. It is not optimised for 64-bit processing. And it favors Intel-based systems over AMD, in fact, it doesn't run on some AMD systems! Despite the enhanced layout, it still looks cluttered with all the tabs in one screen. And a limited set of transitions compared to its competitors.

Adobe After Effects

It doesn't matter what industry you are in, film production, industrial video, or web animation, when it comes to compositing and motion graphics, nothing has unseated After Effects for years.

Although you have a choice of what pallete layout to use, there are actually several defaults you can choose from, but it still looks cluttered. But you can always reorganize it in such a way that you display only what you need and this is actually where one of After Effects' strengths lies, customizability. You can dock and float palletes to your liking. Most of the time I use 3-4 tool palletes and access the other through shortcut keys which enhances workflow and saves work space. Fit up to 100% in the comp window is also another feature that they added so you don't have to adjust to check if it looks good on 100% view when you have more working space and it adjusts when you have less.

A Graph view with keyframes has been added, which enhances workflow in displaying the animation in graph form rather than numeric values. Now you can have the 'time against movement' visually displayed for easy editing. In version 7, you will have tons and tons of text animation you can imagine with just the preset, moreover, you can actually customize yours giving your texts more personality.

Pixel Motion option has been added for movement blurring effect. Unlike frame blending which interpolates between frames, Pixel Motion actually tracks every pixel producing more convincing and quality results

Timewarp gives you the ability to use keyframe features such as easing for time controls. Combined with Pixel Motion, this creates a realistic slow-motion blur with easing.

OpenGL 2.0 gives you the ability to view effects in real-time if you have a powerful enough video card. This means an even more faster workflow.

But not all has been improved. The 3d feature, I think, is now obsolete and primitive. Sure you can get plugins but wouldn't it be nice to have it in it as a bundles saving you extra money? Artists are using more of these anyway so why not add it?

Adobe Systems has these in their arsenal of software among other things that they dominate but I wouldn't go buying stuffs from them unless I see what the competition is offering so do come back to know more about alternative movie editing sofwares.

Video Production Editing

Video Production Editing has been easier nowadays since the computer revolution. I remember, when I was in highschool, I used to edit videos using analog VHS and Betamax with an audio mixer at the side. When I do video production editing, I record the video tapes coming from my Sony V8 camcorder to a VHS tape which becomes my raw footage source. Then I try to map out all the scenes I wanted to use and carefully record the cuts in order according to the script, timed by the music or audio accompanying it. When everything is in sequence on another VHS tape, I record it again to another VHS tape, this time with audio. And there you have it, a grade-A highschool project. I was so good at doing it that students from other classes started coming in to me for help. But you know when you're in highschool, you seem to be so busy you forgot to make business, so I made all videos for free.

But now, it's so much easier doing video production editing as if you are cutting and pasting... and in the digital age, you are just cutting and pasting. Adobe Premiere is one of the entry-level software that you can use. It is so easy to use, you can start editing even without much knowledge about it. Most of my clients back in college were also fellow students, some from other schools and some businesses who just wants cut-to-cut editing. I've earned fairly doing this once a month but it was a bit boring. Nothing creative about the process. You just follow the clients' suggestions, which music to use, which sequences to include, do it in this order and on and on. You'll be like the translator between your client and the software. After awhile, I gave up video production editing at that level and started to explore.

At that time, my daughter will be having her first birthday and I wanted to show my friends how she grew up from month 1-12. So I've decided, this will be cool, I will use my skill in Adobe Premiere and show off! If you want to see that AVP, please click play on the button below:





In video production editing, my edge was sort of a 'well-thought-off' video. I try as much as possible that the music's feel/tempo and lyrics matches the ones at the video/picture, even the timing that it fades in and out. That way it would create the most impact. A friend of mine noticed it and there you go, another video production editing business opportunity.

At this moment, Adobe Premiere is getting to be a bit boring. It has this limited features that you can only use on basic video production editing. As an artist, I tried to explore new softwares that has more tools to express my creativity. And I found out about Adobe After Effects.

Adobe After Effects just blew me away with its interface. You can't seem to figure out which buttons to press first when you are a newbie, but I managed to grasp the interface and workflow. From then on, hundreds of plugins to experiment on and I just couldn't stop video production editing.

Check out my website and see how far I have gone from video production editing on Betamax to Adobe After Effects.

Right now I'm more into motion graphics, specializing my skills a little further. It's funny how you move from one level to another just to find out that you will be moving again soon. As the competition starts to get tighter (that's when it gets boring, because competition would mean more and more people can do what you do), you will either move to another area or try to specialize in one specific part of that business.

Most of the time I'm asked how do you start a business with video production editing. And my answer always is, "YOU START WITH WHATEVER YOU HAVE." Right now, my business revolves around an 8-year old computer, skills, and a lot of friends. But I won't be discussing this until next time when I post some of the tricks in the business of video production editing.

See you next time!