I’ve been a pretty strong Final Cut disciple for most of my filmmaking career. However, I started getting interested in Adobe Products when we used them to shoot a film I co-directed called, Collide. The use of the newly included OnLocation CS3 was a huge boon to the Production workflow, but we had to use a PCs for it because it hadn’t been adapted for Mac yet. When it came time to oversee the first cut in Premiere Pro, I really started to get a feel for the integration Adobe was trying to create.
A year and a half later, I got the chance to crack open Adobe's CS4 Production Premium, which is now is completely compatible with my Mac, including the newly redesigned OnLocation. While this review will focus on Production Premium (and the included OnLocation and Premiere Pro), let me say that I never fail to be amazed by everything Adobe crams in their Production premium bundles: full versions of Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash Professional, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, OnLocation, Encore, Adobe Bridge, and Device Central. That's pretty amazing, if you ask me. (In case you missed it, be sure to check out the full review of CS4: Production Premium in our January issue.)
Although Apple has the long-standing street “cred” of being the company that helps filmmakers, it really seems that Adobe is working much harder to make professional products available to the low (or no) budget filmmaker.
Premiere pro's media browser makes finding your digital files easier.
The Premiere Pro CS4 bundle, as I mentioned, includes OnLocation CS4 and Encore CS4. Every piece to this software has been updated and improved upon since CS3, with functionality and workflow being improved and tightened up tremendously.
My favorite improvement is the improved Dynamic Link which allows you to take entire timelines from Premiere Pro directly into Encore without exporting. No more having to go back to Premiere Pro to make a change to a file, then exporting it and re-importing it again. With the Dynamic Link between these two programs, Adobe has made going back and forth between them a nearly seamless thing. (And for CS4: Production Premium users, you can now “reverse” Dynamic Link from Premiere Pro to After Effects to add polished effects to a pre-existing Premiere Pro timeline.) I believe the word "sexy" is appropriate here.
Now there may be those that feel that this feature would create problems in keeping tabs on their work flow, but they can still do it the old way. Whatever floats your boat, but Adobe has made it easier.
Ease of Use
As a whole, Adobe has added a lot to Premiere Pro and its other programs to make it easy to use as they all relate to each other. Everything ties together and jumping between programs is next to effortless. Video can be recorded digitally through OnLocation, sent to Premiere Pro, and passed on to Encore, which now offers advanced Blu-Ray disc authoring as an option, as well as more options in Flash exporting. This package really functions more as one piece of software with three components working together. (Or more if you get the Production Premium package.) Of course, the cool thing is, you can still use each software component on its own and allow it to function as its own entity, but it is nice to see them all working even more efficiently together when you need them to.
Depth of Options
Rather than trying to combine all the component options and improvements here in one lump portion, we’ll instead discuss each component separately.
Premiere Pro CS4's Metadata panel allows you to keep better track of your workflow.
Premiere Pro CS4
Adobe has gone out of their way to make Premiere Pro a competitor with FCP which is wildly popular among those in video editing, both in low budget and big budget settings. Before converting to Mac a number of years ago, the latest version of Premiere Pro that I had used as my meat and potatoes editor was Premiere Pro 1.5, which I wasn't all that impressed with. I found it more complex than necessary and visually difficult to navigate.
However, as Adobe streamlined the program in Premiere Pro 2, CS3, and now CS4, it has evolved to solve most of these problems. For die hard FCP users, it even functions in many of the same ways that FCP does, including allowing you to choose to use many of the same keyboard shortcuts that you’re used to. This greatly diminishes the learning curve for FCP folks.
I’ve been a pretty strong Final Cut disciple for most of my filmmaking career. However, I started getting interested in Adobe Products when we used them to shoot a film I co-directed called, Collide. The use of the newly included OnLocation CS3 was a huge boon to the Production workflow, but we had to use a PCs for it because it hadn’t been adapted for Mac yet. When it came time to oversee the first cut in Premiere Pro, I really started to get a feel for the integration Adobe was trying to create.
