Depth of Options
Probably the one thing that can successfully pry a well established editor away from his current platform to a competitor’s product is options. If there is one thing that an editor lives and breathes, it is options. Just as much as an editor needs good coverage of a scene and reaction shots he needs a platform that allows him to work quickly and not limit him.
So the big question here is does Premiere Pro give enough options to switch from FCP or Avid? The answer to that question is that depends. I have to say that I am a bit disappointed to a degree with this newest release, if I look exclusively at Premiere Pro by itself. I was hoping that Adobe would streamline their product to make a faster working environment. Instead, their focus was on integrating it with Encore and improving slow motion (more on that in the Performance section).
Other than these improvements, all the other features are basically the same. There is still no way to batch add transitions between multiple clips. If you have a montage with 50 cuts with the same transition, too bad for you because you have to drag and drop 50 transitions. There is also still no straightforward way to apply effects to multiple clips. Fortunately, you can export your project into After Effects, but one must also take into account the fact that not every editor is going to have either the Production Premium or $1,000 for After Effects. And, despite the rising popularity of AVCHD files used in many of the new Hard Drive and SD-card based camcorders, Premiere Pro CS3 still doesn’t open them up directly. (Now there is a workaround in the form of the $250 Black Magic Intensity PCI card which directly inputs the HDMI interface that AVCHD camcorders utilize and will at least allow AVCHD-using filmmakers to digitize footage directly into Premiere Pro CS3)
However, Adobe’s cleverness is easily seen in the inclusion of the additional software with Premiere Pro, whether it be part of Premiere Pro’s standalone package or the aforementioned CS3: Production Premium .
With that said, let’s look at some of the great elements of these included programs.
For folks who wish to add slide shows to their Collector’s Edition DVDs, Encore CS3 allows you to make a slideshow project without even going into a Premiere Pro timeline. You can select the transition you want, the length of the clip, and have it end the same time as a music track. It’s a really handy feature and it’s only disadvantage is that it won’t work if you use more than 99 pictures. Another great feature set in Premiere Pro is the “Export to Encore” option, which takes just the click of a button. I love this feature because all I have to do is click a button and walk away only to come back with my timeline in Encore, ready to be authored. And for folks who found the last version a bit clunky when it came to adjusting menu templates in Photoshop, Encore CS3 has now streamlined that process and made it extremely quick and simple. However, perhaps the strongest feature is Encore’s new “Export to Flash” option. That’s right. For all of us who know nothing about Flash, ActionScripting, or building websites, you can make a flash website to promote your project the same way that you author a DVD. This is a mind-blowing stroke of genius and is easily one of the most head-turning features of this package.
The newly acquired and renamed OnLocation CS3 package is extremely cool, as well. (In fact, MFM editor Jeremy Hanke just co-directed a short film with this package, which you can read about in his article here.) It basically allows you to turn your laptop into a monitoring station that shows you exactly what you’re recording with access to letterbox guides, dual zebras, light meters, colorimeters, and audio levels. In addition, it allows you to directly record footage to your laptop’s hard drive from your camera and code each take with detailed XML data which can be searched through in Bridge. While Serious Magic was acquired too late for Adobe to convert this package to Mac for this release of Premiere Pro CS3, as I mentioned before, it will run with Bootcamp or Parallels. For those of us who aren't the biggest fans of either of those options, hopefully it will be converted for Mac in time for the CS4 release.
Finally, the last program included with this package is Adobe's new Device Central CS3. While not mentioned before, Device Central is a new program packaged with all of Adobe's new CS3 lineup which allows you to accurately emulate what video, DVD, or Flash content you create will look like
on mobile devices. Accuracy is assured by actually having the manufacturer’s
specs from the different sets on the market included with this program. While
not all phones are included out of the box, Adobe makes new device profiles available
all the time.
Above
the realism that the actual manufacturing specs these devices uses entails, you
can further test your video with real world conditions like no backlight, sunlight,
and a variety of reflections. This can seriously help folks who want to make their
films, trailers, and shorts available for the rapidly growing mobile market.
