BURBANK, CA — The Editors’ Lounge recently hosted their monthly get together at AlphaDogs, here, where pros were given the opportunity to get an up close look at the time-saving tools from RE: Vision Effects and Venera Technologies. Editor Brady Betzel was also on hand and lead a discussion on how learning new toolsets can help put film and television editors’ careers on the fast-track. In addition, four lucky attendees walked away with raffle prizes from Venera Technologies and a complete set of plug-ins from RE: Vision Effects.
Lori Freitag, content and training manager of RE: Vision Effects presented the making of Woody & Tinder, a PSA for Saveourbeaches.org. The PSA tells a sad love story about a “wooden” couple who are in love but are unable to enjoy the Southern California beaches due to trash and debris.
Freitag showed how RE: Vision Effects helped in the creation of the project and in overcoming common problems, both production and post production related. Four of the RE: Vision Effects plug-ins were utilized to enhance the project. RE: Match was used to automatically balance the tablet to the DSLR used for live action. DE: Flicker was used to smooth out the timelapse shot of the sunset and Twixtor was used to re-time and re-map some of the shots, allowing removal of an unwanted passerby in the background. The closing titles were flown in and ReelSmart Motion Blur was used to add motion blur to the 3D animated text.
Fereidoon Khosravi, SVP business development/Americas, of Venera Technologies, discussed the company’s flagship, file-based automated QC software, Pulsar, and provided details about the rich feature set of audio/video/container QC checks that Pulsar performs. Fereidoon also presented a live demo of Pulsar, running through some sample files with artifacts and showing how Pulsar is able to identify the issues with the files.
Editor Brady Betzel shared valuable advice and tips regarding tools that have helped him advance in his editing career.
“Trying to get your foot in the door in television editing isn’t easy,” says Betzel. “One way that helped me get my foot in the door was learning software not every editor is confident in using.”
Betzel showed attendees the ease of using Maxon’s Cinema 4D, which can at times seem intimidating, by using presets such as the House Builder in Cinema 4D R16 Visualize Edition, where graphics can be created in minutes that typically would have been outsourced to a graphics team, costing both more time and money.
“Cinema 4D is not just a standard 3D application,” he explains. “It has tools that allow the user to not have to think about complicated toolsets or keystrokes, but instead focus on the creative story telling side of visual effects.”
Cinema 4D’s preset library also gives users one click access to tools like three-point lighting setups and an impressive library of paint textures that would ordinarily have to be created by hand. In addition, Betzel discussed how Adobe After Effects can be a huge asset to an editor’s toolbox and even more powerful when combined with Video CoPilot’s Element 3D.
“With a little bit of effort, any editor or assistant editor comfortable with a nonlinear editorial system can pick up a few quick tips by watching the myriad of tutorials on YouTube to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack. In my own life, this took my career to the next level.”
The next Editors’ Lounge will be held on Friday, June 26th at AlphaDogs in Burbank. To register visit: http://www.editorslounge.com.