Jim Krause | Classes | P351 Video Field & Post Production
Motion Graphics Exercise
10 points
Overview: In this exercise we'll create a short, animated video from a series of still images and then key a graphic over the imagery. You'll use both Photoshop and Premiere.
- Here's an example created for the lesson.
- Here's another example by Grace Horan
- Here's the accompanying video lesson.
You will learn:
- How to make a graphic with a transparent background in Photoshop that you can key over video in Premiere or any other editing program.
- How to animate images and video in Premiere
When you are finished you will output a video file called motiongraphics and turn it in to our P351 Google Drive folder.
Instructions:
Find 5-6 large JPEG images to animate, connected by a common theme. (Landscapes, musicians, sailboats, etc.) These images should be large enough to pan/scan through in an HD environment. (E.g. 3000x2000 pixels). Download the images into your P351 media folder.
Think of a title, quote, or lower third to key over one or more of the images. (E.g. "Wherever you go, go with all your heart" could be keyed over images of hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail.)
Design your graphic so it contains:
- At least one text element
- At least one shape or other visual element
- Treat your text so that it is readable over any background (E.g. use a semi-transparent background, add a stroke and/or drop-shadow)
- Be sure to follow the rules of graphic design (See Jim's Graphic Tips).
- Save your graphic as a PSD, but also use Photoshop's "Save as" command to make a PNG copy. You will later import the PNG copy into Adobe Premiere.
Importing & Animating in Premiere:
- Start a new project in Premiere, give it a name, and save it into your media folder.
- Create a new 1920x1080 HD sequence at 29.97 frames per second. (Jim suggests using HDCAM 422 1080i 30)
- This last step is important because many make the mistake of creating a sequence based on the dimensions of a still picture.
- Import your images and graphic
- Add a track of music, so you have something to edit your images to.
- Animate the photos using the techniques demonstrated in lab
- Add your graphic (on an additional video track)
- Make sure you fade up from black at the beginning, dissolve from picture to picture, dissolve the graphic in and out, and fade to black at the end.
- Make sure your music fades out at the end as the video fades to black.
- When you are satisfied, output a movie named "motiongraphics" (In the Export Media window you can check the "Match Seqeunce Settings" box when you export to get an mxf file or you can transcode to H.264 to get an MP4.)
- Check your work and then upload a copy to our P351 Google Drive folder.
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