… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1362: Create Stock Video That Sells

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

High-quality, visually-interesting generic footage is a money-maker.

Image courtesy of Ferdinand Studio for Pexels.com.

Topic $TipTopic

This article first appeared in MotionArray.com. This is a summary.

Let’s be real. If someone sets out to make stock video footage, they’re probably not doing it just for fun. They’re doing it to make cash. But just how much cash they end up making largely depends on a few key factors.

Find A Niche. The more specialized your craft, the more money you’ll make.

Quality. Quality is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, factors that divide stock footage that sells from stock footage that languishes. Shoot outdoors in natural light, until you know how to light a set. At minimum, shoot 1080p. Don’t use Automatic mode on your camera.

Avoid Branding. Don’t include labels, logos, or other ad-related images.

Upload to Multiple Sites. The review process takes time. And each site pays differently.

Market Your Work. Put a sizzle reel on YouTube.

Track Results to Find Out What Sells. Regularly search the ‘Popular’ or ‘Top Seller’ pages of your go-to stock footage websites, looking specifically at what comes up under the keywords related to your niche.

Don’t Expect Overnight Success. When it comes to making stock footage, the main things to remember (along with the 7 handy tips above) is to start slow, manage your expectations, and gradually work your way up. Oh, and of course…HAVE FUN!


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… for Visual Effects

Tip #1368: Learn 3D in Cinema 4D Lite

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

How to create high-impact images in After Effects using Cinema 4D.

Image courtesy of Cineversity.com

Topic $TipTopic

Cinema 4D Lite is the free version of Cinema 4D that ships with Adobe After Effects. In this free 31-video tutorial series, Athanasios Pozantzis illustrates the interface, navigation, customization, modeling, texturing, light, animation, sweeping, lathing, moving, rotating, deforming, scaling and many others.

Here’s the link to learn more.


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… for Codecs & Media

Tip #1351: Creating 64-bit Media

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Older software can create media files for current gear.

Topic $TipTopic

Al asks:

“I have an older Mac tower running 10.8.5 and have the Adobe CS6 suite. Can I use Adobe Media Encoder to convert my video to 64-bit so it’s usable on the newer Macs? I also have Compressor 3.0.5.”

Larry answers.

Yes. The codec, not the compression software, determines the bit-depth of the media file. As well, not all older media needs to be converted. Most files will work fine as is.

The easiest way to test file compatibility is to compress a file, then send it to a friend running either Catalina or Big Sur. If the media file plays, you’re all set.

64-bit is different from the 8-, 10-, 12-bit depth of the media we shoot. 32- or 64-bit refers to a media file’s compatibility with the CPUs and RAM on your computer. The bit-depth of the media refers to the range of grayscale or color values it can display.

macOS Catalina and Big Sur require 64-bit compatible media. Earlier versions of the macOS support both 32-bit and 64-bit.

64-bit compatible media includes:

  • QuickTime or MPEG-4 containers using:
  • ProRes
  • DNx
  • GoPro Cineform
  • H.264
  • HEVC

Early versions of both Adobe Media Encoder and Apple Compressor can create most, if not all, of these files. However, compressing HEVC on your hardware will take a LLLOOOONNNGGGGGG time!


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… for Codecs & Media

Tip #1355: Create a Poster Frame for iPhone Video

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The iPhone displays the first frame of your video as the poster frame.

Topic $TipTopic

This tip was suggested by Darcy Peters, who discovered a very cool way to add poster frames for iPhone movies.

Larry, you’ve explained how to add poster frames to video (link). However, this doesn’t translate to storing said videos on your iPhone, for example. Those files arbitrarily show the first frame of the video.

However, I discovered a very cool workaround:

Export a single frame of the video that I want to appear as the image icon on my iPhone. Then insert that frame as the first frame (single frame) of the video. Because it’s a single frame at the start of the video, the viewer will never notice it, but it works!


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1359: How to Find Available Shortcuts

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Any shortcut can have multiple keys assigned to it.

Shortcuts with no key assigned (top). Notice one shortcut has two keys assigned (blue box).

Topic $TipTopic

Adobe Premiere Pro has hundreds of potential keyboard shortcuts – but only a fraction of these are enabled. Here’s how to find what’s missing.

One of my favorite pastimes is looking for unassigned keyboard shortcuts. (Yes, I know, I need a life.)

Open the Keyboard Shortcuts window (Edit menu for Windows, Premiere Pro menu for Mac).

In the search box on the lower left enter the word or partial word you want to find. (“height” in the screenshot example.) This searches all shortcut titles and text and displays whatever it finds.

NOTE: I generally search on partial words to find the most potential shortcuts that I can.

Using different words will find different shortcuts. Don’t assume Adobe calls stuff the same thing you do.

  • If no key combination is assigned, the Shortcut field will be empty (top of screen shot).
  • If a key combination is assigned, you’ll see it to the right of the name (see bottom four entries in screen shot).

You can assign more than one key combination to the same shortcut. I use this to match shortcuts between Premiere and Final Cut so I don’t keep tripping over the wrong shortcut.

NOTE: To add a shortcut, double-click the gray area in the Shortcut column, or to the right of any existing assigned key.

To remove a shortcut, click the small “x” next to the key combination.


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1333: Set vs. Scale to Frame Size

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

For greatest flexibility, always choose “Set to Frame Size” when scaling images.

When scaling an image, the best option is to select “Set to Frame Size.”

Topic $TipTopic

When placing an image, or video, that has a different size from the sequence, Premiere provides three different ways to scale it. But not all these choices are good ones.

When the clip frame size and sequence frame size don’t match, Premiere offers three options:

  • None. This places the image at 100% size in the timeline, regardless of the sequence frame size.
  • Scale to Frame Size. This scales the image to fit in the sequence frame, but does not change the Scale setting in the Effect Controls panel. This means that you don’t know how much the size of an image has been changed.
  • Set to Frame Size. This scales the image to fit in the sequence frame AND changes the Scale setting in the Effect Controls panel to indicate how much the image size changed.

You can create a default setting using the Default Media Scaling menu in Preferences > Media. Or you can set these individually for each clip by control-clicking the clip in the Timeline. (See screen shot.)

If you want to create “Ken Burns” style moves on stills, None is the best choice.

Otherwise, use Set to Frame Size. This fits the image into the frame and shows how much it was scaled in the Effect Controls panel.

NOTE: I can’t think of any reason to use Scale to Frame Size.

EXTRA CREDIT

Image quality degrades if you enlarge an image much more than 100%.


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… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1334: Frame Hold vs. Frame Hold Segment

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

When pausing the action, a frame hold segment provides the most flexibility.

The Frame Hold options available for each clip.

Topic $TipTopic

In the past, when we needed to freeze the action, we created a stand-alone freeze frame by exporting a still, then, reimporting it and adding it to the Premiere timeline. But, there’s a much better way: Frame Hold.

A Frame Hold is attached to the source clip, rather than a separate piece of media. To create it, put the playhead on the frame you want to freeze, then control-click the clip in the timeline. Scroll about half way down to find two options:

  • Add Frame Hold
  • Insert Frame Hold Segment.

Add Frame Hold freezes the frame at the position of the playhead and replaces the rest of the clip with the freeze. This is useful when you want to create a freeze, then add a transition.

Insert Frame Hold Segment inserts a two-second freeze at the position of the playhead, then returns to the original video. This is useful when you want to pause the action – say to add a graphic – then return to the action.

EXTRA CREDIT

You can trim the duration of the Frame Hold Segment as long as you use the yellow trimming tool. Rolling the edit point will break the sync between the two shots.


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… for Apple Final Cut Pro X

Tip #1339: Adjust Thumbnails in Timeline

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

We can now adjust the height of timeline thumbnails using this slider.

The Timeline Appearance panel.

Topic $TipTopic

It’s a small thing – but this new feature in the 10.5 update to Final Cut Pro can improve the look of your clips in the timeline; especially if you are editing on a very large screen.

  • Open a project into the timeline.
  • Click the Timeline Appearance button (top red arrow in screen shot) in the top right corner of the timeline.
  • Click the thumbnail icon (middle red arrow) to collapse all timeline clips into thumbnails.
  • Slide the bottom slider (bottom red arrow) left and right to change the height of the thumbnails.

On very large screens, the thumbnails may get too small to see. This adjusts them so that even on a large screen, you can still see the names of your clips.


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… for Codecs & Media

Tip #1324: Test Compressed Image Quality – FAST!

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The Difference blend mode is a fast way to see how much your compression settings are damaging your images.

Two frames – one compressed and the source – compared using the Difference blend mode.

Topic $TipTopic

The most important concept you need to understand about video compression is that the process of compressing a file ALWAYS removes data during compression. Always. This means that the more you compress a file to reduce it’s file size, the more data is removed.

Once removed, you can’t put this data back. This is the reason you don’t want to re-compress an already compressed file. Another important note is that different movies, codecs and bit rates yield different results.

There’s a very fast way to compare the quality of a source file with the compressed image.

The process is simple: Using Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, or Premiere Pro, compare a frame from the source file with a frame from the compressed file using the Difference blend mode.

Perfectly matched frames are solid black. Frames with lots of differences – such as the screen shot – show lots of ghosting, especially around edges. This technique is a good way to test different compression technology and see which one works the best for your projects.

Here’s an article the explains this technique in detail and provides illustrations of the results from a variety of compression settings and software.


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… for Apple Motion

Tip #1305: Groups Do More Than Organize

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Use Groups to animate or modify multiple elements at once.

A Group with both Filters and Behaviors applied to it.

Topic $TipTopic

A group, in Apple Motion, is a folder that holds elements, behaviors and filters. But a Group does more than simply hold stuff.

Every Motion project requires at least one group, where we store all the elements in a project. At a minimum, we can use one, or more, groups to store and organize our elements. For example, I often organize groups as:

  • Text
  • Foreground
  • Mid-ground
  • Background

NOTE: The stacking order of groups makes a difference. Foreground is on top, background is on the bottom.

But, what makes groups much more than simple organizational tools is that we can apply behaviors and effects to a group. These settings then affect all the elements contained in that group. This is a great way to animate multiple elements at once.

EXTRA CREDIT

Select a group, then go to Inspector > Properties to change Transform, Blending or Drop Shadow settings, the same as if we were adjusting an individual element.


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