As part of our project, we have to include the use
of text within our opening titles to communicate with the audience about the
companies and people involved in the making of the film. Agne decided to work
with a couple of softwares in order to create the effects she has been wishing
for the title ''Christo''. It involved the use of the combination of the two;
Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects.
Agne began with a blank project in Premiere Pro.
She thought that inserting the text first would be a good way to start the
titles. She clicked on 'Title' in the menu bar above, then followed the
drop-down menu to 'Default Still', this opened up a window where you can edit
the text as much as you like until you're satisfied.
Although she loved the
wide range of different fonts and the numerous abilities to edit the text, Agne
realised that Premiere Pro didn't have the effect radius blur, which she would
need to achieve one of the effects. This is when Agne decided to connect
Premiere Pro with After Effects. To do so, she first dragged the text file from
the project area where all footage is kept, and dragged it into her sequence.
Agne had to extend the file to a relatively long file so that it could last at
least 6 seconds. She then right-clicked on the file and selected 'Replace with
After Effects Composition'. This automatically opened After Effects and
required her to start a new project in order to edit the file from Premiere
Pro.
Agne decided to alter the font to 'Big Caslon'
because she thought this would fit the atmosphere best. Furthermore, she wasn't
satisfied with how little the text was, so Agne decided to increase this by
150px. Even if the size is too big, she can always reduce the scale when
working in Premiere Pro. Agne left the text simple so it's not overcrowded with
tonnes of effects due to the fact that the text has to serve its purpose of
notifying the audience with the title of the movie. She wanted other elements to
take care of the role of making the opening titles look appealing and add to
the mood of the film.
To apply the effect Agne was hoping to do, she
looked at the tab where all Effects and Presets are stored. Agne wanted to blur
the text, so she looked at the 'Blur & Sharpen' section, where she managed
to locate Radial Blur. Agne was aiming to achieve the effect that the text gets
thrown onto the screen amongst the splattering blood, so she thought adding an
impression of motion-like blur to the text will achieve this effect. Agne
ensured that the type for the radial blur is 'Zoom', so she could create the
impression of the text being zoomed out onto the screen. Furthermore, she made
the Anti-aliasing to Best Quality so she could later export the
file to HD. Agne then had to play around with the amount and the key
frames of the radial blur. To be able to use these, she had to click
on the tiny stopwatch to activate the key frames as these are the
main mechanisms for creating animation. Key frames come in small
diamond shapes, which you add and adjust their positions along the
sequence. The marked points allow you to add or make changes for the property
at the current time whenever you change the property's value. For her first
keyframe, she placed it at the very start of the sequence and set the amount of
blurriness to 100%. She ensured that the centre of the blurr, where it focuses
is in the middle of the title. Although the text itself isn't in the centre, it
makes no difference when it gets to editing with the file in Premiere Pro
because the text will not be distorted when changing its position. To then
reduce the blurriness, she added a second key frame and dragged
it further along the sequence to set the point where the blurriness has reached
zero. For this keyframe, she reduced the blurriness to 0%. Now the space
between the two key frames represents something like a transition
from 100% blur to 0% blur. Agne reviewed the animation once then save the
file into her area for later use.
When Agne returned to Premiere Pro, the file
changes to the settings that have been adjusted in After Effects. Now, whenever
she wished to make changes to the file in After Effects, the file in Premiere
Pro will automatically react to the adjustments, so editing is made easier. But
if she edited the file with Premiere Pro, nothing will change to the file in
After Effects.
Agne then decided to work on the zoom effect. She
had the radial blur set on the file from After Effects, so then she can focus
on actually making the movement of the text. Firstly, she had to relocate the
file because originally it was not centred when working on it with Adobe After
Effects. To edit this, she double clicked on the preview window until the frame
appeared. Agne then moved the file across the screen to my satisfactory point.
Now, her aim is to make the title appear like it is being thrown onto the
screen. She first zoomed out on my preview screen where she get to witness
her final result. Because she'll be zooming in the text quite a lot, Agne
zoomed out to 10% so that she can use the frame of the text to extend it to its
furthest until she reached the limit. To get the frame to show up, she double
clicked on the screen (for future reference: ensure that other layers are
locked to make it easier for selecting the file as it will select whatever is
the closest to the area you're clicking on). Once again, to create animation
she used key frames to set the points in order to change the settings
of the file's scale. Agne didn't want the text to stop moving as soon as
it was thrown onto the screen - she wanted it to continue zooming out, but she
didn't want this to be too noticeable so she added a third key frame and
dragged this all the way to the end of the clip. Agne set the scale settings slightly
different from the previous key frame so that the text appears
to be slowly zooming out into the background.
Now, Agne decided to work on the real action in the
background. She decided to add blood splatters that are also thrown onto the
screen along with the text. She searched the Internet for any blood stock
footage that she could use. Luckily, she found a splotch with no watermark, so
she inserted this file into the project. She repeated same edits as for the
text, except that she didn't include the radial blur, so it didn't involve me
in using After Effects for this footage. To edit its entrance, she first set
the scale of the splatter, zooming in as much as possible. Once again,
using key frames she set the points to match the ones the text
has to allow the motion to flow when reviewed together. She also followed
similar settings of blur as the text so that she got the depth of the two
right. Furthermore, she thought that the blood wasn't bright enough, so she
added an adjustment effect that allowed her to increase the colour red in the
splatter to give it more gore.
Agne discussed with the group, and we came to a
decision of adding more blood splatters, so this time she searched for some
image stock of blood splatters via google. She managed to find two similar ones
that will be placed on each sides. She repeated the processes as for the one in
the middle. She placed the second one on the lower corner on the left side, and
the third one at the top right corner to give it some sort of composition.
She reviewed the result and had a thought before
coming to a decision of giving the titles some depth. She decided that the mid
ground will be the blood splatter in the middle with the text 'CHRISTO'. For
the one on the left, she decided to put this one in the foreground, and the one
on the left in the background. To achieve this effect, she played around with
the settings for the blurriness, so for example if the mid ground is in focus,
the foreground will be out of focus equally to the background. If the
foreground is in focus, the mid ground will be out of focus, and the background
will be twice as much out of focus. Same goes with the background; mid ground
blurred, foreground double blurred. This too involved using key
frames to set the times when one layer becomes blurred and the other
is in sharp focus on the screen. Agne believed that zooming out and in a bit
also helped create the effect of the lens focusing from one blood splatter to
the next.
For the final touches, she decided to make the text
flicker to get that sense of imperfection. To do so, she cut up the text file
into 7 identical pieces. In some cases, it involved her duplicating few files
to get 2 copies of the text on the screen at the same time with different
aesthetics. She also relocated some text files so that they don't always stay
fixed in the original position.
To finish the opening titles, she transitioned all
the files so that they all fade into black in the end. She ensured that the
transitions' lengths are all equal so that all files fade out at the same time.
Here is the final result:
CHRISTO
Agne thinks that for a first attempt, it is relatively good due to the different uses of effects. She had never used Premiere Pro or Adobe After Effects before, but the use of similar programming such as Sony Vegas and Final Cut had given her a head start. Generally, they have similar ways of functioning, so she got the hang of Premiere Pro and After Effects fairly quickly. However, she does think that she could have improved it.
One way Agne could make the opening titles more successful is leaving more area at the start. She edited all of her clips on the timeline, which means that some of the footage was actually lost at the beginning. This includes one of the main features; the throw of the text. When you play it, the motion at the beginning of the blood and the title being thrown onto the screen have been lost, Agne thinks that if she was to leave a few seconds before the actual footage, it would have not skipped the beginning. Now that she has learnt from her mistake, she will ensure that she will leave a few seconds before the clips so that no work is cut off.
Additionally, to improve the opening titles even more,Agne thinks that she shouldn't have gotten carried away with the effects because the titles look more like they have been edited for a film trailer. She thinks that with the sudden movement and a range of effects, it looks too dramatic compared to our opening titles. The mood isn't right, and we as a group think that if she was to edit this appropriately for the opening titles, that she would tone down with the effects, like losing the motion of the text and the blood splatter being thrown on the screen and setting the titles in a more eerie atmosphere would have been more appropriate.
In conclusion, for Agne's first attempt it was quite good, she has also experienced the ups and downs. She thinks that although she has learnt how to handle both softwares - Premiere Pro and After Effect - she hasen't met the criteria that we as a group were working with, which makes it rather difficult to use these titles in our movie. So with the mistakes identified, we think she will be much more aware of her editing in the future.
