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CS3 Production Premium for Motion Graphics and Interactive Enthusiasts, Part 1
Not on the front lines of video production? No worries; there's plenty here for you
I was somewhat skeptical about what the forthcoming Adobe CS3 Production Premium bundle would offer outside of Flash and After Effects; after all, I have precisely zero skills when it comes to the "front end" of production (shooting, capture, editing, etc.). My interests lie squarely down the line (motion graphics, interactivity, Web distribution), so my initial thought was that the entire bundle might be of limited total value to someone like me. However, after seeing and using a pre-release version of the suite for myself, it turns out that there are a lot of hidden gems in surprising places.
Now, with my interests/allegiances clearly stated in the intro, suffice it to say that if you're looking for hot-and-heavy breakdowns of what the situation is with programs like Premiere, OnLocation, and Ultra, it's highly likely you'll be disappointed. What these pieces are intended to be is a roundup of some interesting tidbits that might not be obvious from Adobe's press materials, as well as general items of note for folks like me who skew towards motion graphics and interactivity. We're also going to do a bit of the ol' "getting to know you" for the Mac faithful, who have heretofore never seen Encore or Premiere Pro on their chosen platform (and will, sadly, need to wait a bit longer for OnLocation and Ultra, which both remain Windows-only—though "Boot Camp-able"—for this release). So, with that preface/caveat/warning firmly in place, let's get to the goods.
General Notes
Let's start with the little nuggets that either apply to the entire suite or are simply uncategorizable. First, let me take a moment to say that it's obvious Adobe is moving in the direction of two distinct interfaces for the products that sport the the CS(#) moniker. There's the spankin' new CS3 design interface, which encompasses Photoshop, Flash, InDesign, and Illustrator, and is known by its now signature dockable panel sets. Then there's the production interface (fig. 1), which actually hearkens back to the last Production Studio product. If you've used After Effects 7 on either platform, you're familiar with Adobe's production interface, which is also characterized by dockable palettes (albeit slightly different ones than found in the CS3 design UI), as well as the ability to change the brightness of the interface and the ever-so-useful "press tilde to expand" behavior of individual panels. The production interface is common to After Effects, Premiere, and Encore, but with the inclusion of Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop Extended, OnLocation and Ultra (the latter two of which still sport interfaces left over from when they were Serious Magic products), you've got a pretty serious mix of sometimes disparate interface types going on. And once the Master Collection ships, you can thrown in the old-school Macromedia interface still tiredly worn by Dreamweaver and Fireworks, and you've got a veritable interface bonanza. However, it's pretty clear that the CS3 design and production interfaces are where things are headed, and I suspect much of the UI smorgasbord will be history by the time CS4 rolls around.
Figure 1: The Adobe production interface, as seen in After Effects CS3.
Mac users may be unfamiliar with Dynamic Link, Adobe's render-free integration feature that allows you to share data between Premiere, After Effects, and Encore, so it's definitely worth a mention, especially if you expand it to include all the ways that the programs work together (which is where Photoshop comes in as well). This is something of a big deal, because it opens up (for example) Premiere's editing capabilities for use in After Effects, or allows you to import an After Effects comp as a motion menu in Encore and have it auto-update when you make changes. Encore also uses native Photoshop PSD files for its menus and buttons, which also auto-update when you make edits in Photoshop. For me, though, the kicker is the ability to copy and paste assets from the Premiere timeline to After Effects, and vice-versa (fig. 2). If you've ever gone through the pain of trying to string together clips in After Effects, you'll appreciate this feature immensely. I'm no editor, but it's much easier to use Premiere if you need to do some basic editing before moving into After Effects, and with the ability to copy and paste a sequence between the two, it's a no-brainer to introduce Premiere into your workflow.
Figure 2: A string of clips in Premiere (top) copied and pasted to make a perfect doppelganger in After Effects' timeline (bottom).
Switching gears a bit, if you're into Flash Video, you may be interested to know about how Premiere, After Effects and Soundbooth can not only export sequences as FLV files (or XML documents containing marker information in the case of Soundbooth), but can also embed cue points so you can "chapterize" or assign interactivity to your clips once you've moved over to Flash. There's really not a whole lot more to say than that, so let's forge ahead.
The last common element I'll mention is the inclusion of the Clip Notes feature. Available from After Effects and Premiere, Clip Notes lets you set markers in your timeline and then export a QuickTime or Windows Media file, which is then embedded into a PDF document. That PDF then goes to whomever needs to see it, and then they can make notes or comments directly in Adobe Reader (fig. 3). Once the document has been annotated, they then export out a small file to send back to you, which you can import back into your timeline to make changes or edits from. It's a pretty slick process, though one wonders why there's no FLV option for the video clip, seeing as Adobe is heavily pushing Flash Video in just about everything else they do.
Figure 3
And with the common elements out of the way, let's take a look at the individual products in the suite.
Premiere
I've already mentioned the ability to copy and paste timelines to and from After Effects, as well as the Dynamic Link element, so I won't belabor those particular points. Again, I'll reiterate that I'm not an editor, so in my ignorance of that world I'm likely leaving out a wheelbarrow's worth of good stuff that editors will be overjoyed to find in Premiere CS3. Such is life. However, one thing definitely caught my eye, and it's something that will add to Premiere's value in my toolbox: the extremely intuitive time remapping feature (fig. 4). You might ask what the draw for After Effects users is, seeing as AE already has Time Remapping as well as the Time Warp filter. I counter with two pretty good reasons: one, it's dead simple, much more so than either of the AE solutions (more on that in a moment), and two, the quality is pretty damned amazing. To the latter point, the good folks on the Premiere team have been busy making sure that the remapping code does a more than adequate job of slowing down footage, and after seeing it in action, big kudos are definitely warranted. As for the simplicity, I've gotten pretty adept over the years at coaxing predictable results out of the much-misunderstood Time Remapping feature in After Effects, but Premiere's incarnation is simply wonderful to use and easy to pick up in mere seconds. All it takes is a couple of clicks to create AE-like keyframes, sliding a handle back and forth, and then adjusting the transition speed—Premiere takes care of extending or contracting the clip for you. Seriously, you can do some pretty slick time warping with just a couple of steps, and the process is so painless that it's definitely a reason to work Premiere into the AE workflow when you otherwise might not think to do so.
Figure 4
Soundbooth
Another thing I'm not is a sound guy, but I guess Adobe figures there are a lot of folks out there like me, because they've gone and written an entirely new application geared for the "have to deal with sound in a pinch" type of user. Soundbooth has been in public beta since last year, so there's really not a whole lot of surprises at this point, but I've really come to appreciate how Soundbooth is set up for quick audio generation and/or editing. Hardcore editors may be nonplussed by the task-driven approach, but Adobe has managed to pack professional-grade features into an interface that caters to the (at best) audio hobbyist. Simple tasks like fading clips (fig. 5, top), audio cleanup and sound removal (fig. 5, middle), and changing the duration of clips (fig. 5, bottom) are intuitive and elegant.
Figure 5
The other big thing is being able to create derivative soundtracks from the included composition library. Soundbooth will include dozens of such sountracks when it finally ships, with additional scores available in bundles for purchase directly from Adobe. What's really great is the ability to keyframe the volume and intensity of scores, and when paired with an imported video clip you can create soundtracks that rise or fade based on the specific visuals of your show (fig. 6).
Figure 6
All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised at the amount of usefulness I've gotten out of Soundbooth even in its beta form, which is high praise coming from someone who tends to avoid audio at all costs.
Flash
I'm not going to get into Flash too much here; after all, we've had ample coverage so far in the form of a first look piece (which outlines the new features) as well as a full review of Flash CS3 Professional. What may be best to do here is to run through a quick bullet list of how Flash (the program as well as the format) fits into the Production Premium bundle:
- Of course, Flash CS3 Professional is now part of the suite, which is big news in and of itself
- Flash CS3 sports new and easier to use FLV playback components (fig. 7), in addition to a streamlined import feature
- Flash CS3 and the Flash Video Encoder both offer ways to save presets as well as the ability to deinterlace footage
- Premiere, After Effects, and Soundbooth can create Flash-ready content (either by producing FLV files with embedded cue points or importable marker lists)
- After Effects now has better SWF integration (which we'll touch on in the next installment)
- Encore can now produce fully interactive Flash movies (in SWF format) from a DVD project (this one isn't specific to Flash CS3 itself, but it's worth a shout out and a mention that we'll get to it in more depth later)
Figure 7
Truth be told, I was a little disappointed that Flash and After Effects in particular didn't enjoy more crossover (perhaps an AE-like timeline mode for Flash animations), but let's not minimize that Flash has muscled its way into the mix in a big way, and that's aces as far as I'm concerned.
More in part two!
We'll leave it there for today. In our next installment, we'll cover After Effects, Photoshop Extended, Encore, and touch on Ultra and OnLocation, so be sure to tune in in a few days for the exciting conclusion. In the meantime, the products at the center of today's piece are available right now in one form or other: Premiere Pro and Soundbooth are both downloadable Public Betas on the Adobe Labs site, and Flash CS3 is already in final release with a newly-unleashed trial version available even as I write this, so what are you waiting for? Check 'em out and we'll resume the festivities shortly.
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