You’ve followed me long enough to know that I will sometimes get fixated on some new technology and as my friend Matt would say, get stuck in the secret lab. I happened when I first got into digital cameras, and then infrared, and well, it’s a long list. But what seems to keep me going is how surprising the new stuff is. When I say surprising, I mean that every once in a while I fall over something that I never thought possible.
You remember how I was going back and forth between iMovie, then Final Cut Express (FCE) and then Adobe Premiere Pro (an old version). And I’ve been futzing with them over the last few days slowly coming to the conclusion that Premiere was going to work the best for me – and this morning I’m reading up about sequences, and importing files – especially images. This whole movie thing really revolves around photography.
And I’m wondering about what format, what bit-depth, what color space etc. to import image files into Premiere when I come across a line that says, in effect, that Premiere can not only understand Photoshop files, but when you import a PSD (Photoshop file) with layers – it can – if you want it to, break it apart and stick each layer as a separate clip (file).
And then I’m reading that you can use Photoshop tools, like the clone tool, while you are in Premiere…? Is that true, or am I getting something mixed up. The one thing that does seem clearer is that there is going to be a bridge (so to speak) between Photoshop and Premiere… and how that bridge works… I’m not sure yet, but the idea that come from it for animation… and various effects…
You could, for example, show a movie made out of layer dissolves or cuts… again, just for explanation purposes… sorry for the ellipses but I want to jump back to the lab.
Can’t answer the specifics, but this recent blog post from photographer and educator David Wells addresses some interesting interrelated subjects.
http://thewellspoint.com/2010/09/03/formulating-the-grammar-aesthetic-and-style-of-multi-media/
Elliot – yep. Excellent place to read about the convergence. And yes, one aspect of the convergence – what they call multi-media, is a convergence built into the software… The idea of working on a still image that could become an animation, rather easily; and the idea of going back and forth between Premiere and PS was a shock to my system.
In the article (post) the author also talks about the idea of a class on Final Cut which is aimed at photographers; and I’d say the same would be great for Premiere.
The movie maker and still photographer have overlapping but different needs. Damned interesting.
Remember the film Waltz With Bashir from a couple of years back? I recall reading that was animated using Adobe Flash. It was certainly an interesting look.
I don’t know nuthin’ about Premiere, but the people I know regularly (and seriously) doing videos are all using Final Cut, like Mike K.:
http://vimeo.com/user958381
The only people I know who choose Premiere are those like Jay Burlage, using Premiere-specific features for timelapse video:
http://vimeo.com/milapse
(Both these guys use Canon, by the way.)