Using stills in a edit was the first thing we got shown. You begin by making a serrate bin which should be for your stills. You then import your still into this bin like you would with video etc. However it is useful to click on options when you are importing your pictures because then you get a lot more options such as resizing options. You can choose to either keep your image as it it and not resize which as it gives away will just use the picture in its current format and size. Then there is an option to fit it to your project which means your image will be restricted or out down to fit. Then you can resize it in a way which means it remakes the image to fit your project without stretching it etc. This 3rd option is probably the most useful and is officially called 'Resize image to fit format raster'.
Another option that you get on this window is to scale full range to legal range which is good to click because it means all your colours will be formatted as well to match the project meaning they will be a truer representation. When you are happy with these settings press OK and they will import into the Stills Bin.
Then when you have the image or images you want imported you can begin editing with them. One cool thing you can do is to firstly pull the image onto your timeline however you want it. Then you can go onto your effects menu which we looked at previously. This is found in the main project window. The effect we used was called 'Pan and Zoom' which as it says is how you can add a pan or zoom or both to your image etc. You can then drag and drop this effect onto your image on the timeline. Then you need to reimport this image first before the effect will let you use it because it basically create a duplicate so you aren't damaging your original. Once done you can then go onto the effects editor window for the Pan and Zoom and this is where you can begin to edit it:
When you begin to edit this you can basically put your timeline cursor where you want the first keyframe to be. Then you can use the box which appears over your composer window and drag it/resize it to where you want the image to begin in your composition. Then you keyframe it there. Then you move to you next or last position on the timeline and again place this box and resize it to where you want it to be at this point. Then you again key frame which will lock it in place:
Once you have done this you can then press play on the clip and it will pan or zoom in the way you have kerframed it.
You should then store this new media you have made. With our university system we can save it in our area on the Nexus.
We then learnt that you can also import Photoshop files into Avid to work with. Again you can import them into a specific bin like you would with video media. You can also go onto the options when doing this to make sure you import the Photoshop file how you need it. You can select the image size which again you should make it match format raster. Then you can choose current format which means it is a Photoshop file still. The best part about these options is that you can either choose to Flatten the file which means all the layer from photoshop get squashed together before importing in. Or you can Select the specific layers you want from this file and it will only import these. Or you can import as a Sequence of layers which means every single layer from the photoshop file will come through as its own operate track already in a sequence. You can also have the option once it is imported to make the white Opaque meaning you can layer different images or videos underneath.
If you do important your Photoshop file as a Sequence of Layers it means when you put it on your timeline each different layer of this Photoshop file will come up as a different track which can be really useful for animating it because you can make different parts of the image cut in and out at different times and basically add effects etc like you can do on a normal track of video/image.
Next we looked into how to add Bars, Tone and a Clock to our piece which is an industry and university hand in standard. Again you should be creating a bin to put these in. Firstly the bars should be the industry standard legal range 100% bars which can be found on the university Nexus and you can import these into this bin. When importing these though you must make sure to click the option which says 'Do not modify, Treat as legal' because they already are legal so you don't want your project settings to effect these. You should have 20 seconds of bars and these come after the 10 seconds you need of clock. The official UCA clock can be found in the university Nexus bin too. To change the timing of the clock so its right you click on the clock in your relevant bin and there will be a start option in which you should put in the time code 000010. To add your title and information onto the clock about your piece insert the 10 seconds of it onto your timeline then add a title to this same as you would for any kind of title or text you add on avid which we have looked at in a previous workshop. You then layer this text in the right place on the clock on the track above the clock so it sits on top of it. So now that you have your 10 seconds of clock and then your 20 seconds of bars you also need 20 seconds of tone to go with the bars. You do this by either going into the Meter Menu or the Audio Editor Menu and right clicking to get a drop down. On this drop down you will see an option to 'Create Tone Media'. This will then bring up the options box for creating this tone media. You need to set the level to -18 as this is the required standard for tone. Then you apply this tone onto the relevant track so it sits with your bars for 20 seconds.
Then we went on to looking at how you should export Avid projects. Firstly you need to begin by marking an In and Out point on your main timeline at the very beginning and end of your piece. Then you must also highlight all tracks in your timeline too. Then go to where this Sequence is in your bin and right click on it. Then go on this menu down to the option that says 'Output' then 'Export to File'. This will then bring up a general save box like you see on most programmes. Here you can firstly choose where you want this project to save to which in this case will probably be on the University Nexus in your own area. Once you have done this you can go into the settings box and make sure you tick the box which says about Mark Points which you did at the beginning. Then you also need to tick use selected tracks which again you did at the beginning of this process. Also you need to tick to keep it as legal range. Then you must choose a format which will usually be Quicktime as this is a general output. Then if you want a large file for Archive purposes usually you can either click same as source setting or if you need a more compressed format for the internet or to pass round to people H.264 is much more accessible. Also on this format make sure the audio settings are set to Stereo. Now if you Avid sequence is already Transcoded this will export once you press Ok however if it isn't it won't till you go back and Transcode it. You do this by clicking Consolidate on the sequence and then Transcode. Once your piece is successfully Exported to where you want it you should do a spot check by opening it up and watching parts of it to check their is correct audios and visuals. The next step which is good to do is to use Media Encoder to put it into the correct format if you need it changed. You open up Media Encoder and there will be two option boxes. General settings to use to make it internet ready are H.264 then Vimeo HD 1080P 25 . Another good thing you can do here is change the pinpoint which you might want to do to eliminate the bars and tones because you won't want these on it if your uploading it to the internet. Audio should be set to 4800kh as well. Then you can change where you send it/save it to by clicking output file. Then when you have all the setting ready you click the play button and it will begin to encode it into the new format. Again once it has done this and exported it you should do another spot check to just to see if the visuals and the audio is correct.
Then we moved on to get shown how to edit Green Screen on Avid. You put your green screen clip onto the timeline like normal but then you need to apply an effect from the effect menu. The effect you are looking for is Spectra Matte which is under Key Effects. Once you have applied this to the clip it then gives you the option to choose which colour of this image you are keying out so you would click on the green screen for example. Then there is the Alpha button which lets you layer the video or image you want in the keyed out area. Then there are other useful settings in the Editing Options for this effect such as Tolerance which ca help adjust how precise the keyed out colour area is. Then the Spill option lets you control how much it keys out areas which have been spilt on to such as if someone had a slight green reflection on them from the screen. This effect can be very easy to do in Avid if is simply keying out you are hoping for however when going for something more complex it still might be worth doing it in a programme such as After Effects.
Lastly we looked into masks and how they can be used to make a visual impact by changing the aspect rations on the film like letter-boxing in a sense. You go into the film effects in the menu again and click on the masks section and you can choose mask margins. You can change the colour of these with the mix button. Then you can simply position them where you want. The only problem is these margins only come out in the export on the latest version on Avid so these will only work on this versions. Any older versions don't leave these margins on once exported for whatever reason. However it is still useful to know.
I found this Workshop very informative cause we got to ask about techniques which interested us and I learnt a lot more specific things I wanted to know. I am very much looking forward to now going on to use Avid with my own material in the future.
(Apologies for the lack of Screenshots in this post. I got so invested in what we were learning/practising that I forgot!)
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