Production : Titles

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.