Pro Editing @ Home

by Kevin P McAuliffe
July 7, 2009

As I seem to have been saying more and more lately, in these tough economic times, the only person that can help you is yourself. With the way the world is going, people are deciding to do major career changes, and one industry that seems to have everyone interested is television, but there is a slight problem. Making yourself viable means spending money to make money, and you need to spend money on equipment and software, which believe it or not, is the easy part of the process. The second thing you have to spend money on is training to get yourself up to speed to start creating cool work that will land you jobs, but here’s the catch. How do you decide if this is REALLY what you want to do? You can spend all your money on equipment, and then realize that it is too overwhelming! Well, that’s where “Basic Training for Adobe CS4 Production Premium”, a great new training disc from Class on Demand, comes in, and is going to help you decide if this is really what you want to do. Let’s take a look at what it has to offer.

The post production world is a wide ocean with many different ways to travel, and if you are going to invest in a product, the Production Premium CS4 from Adobe is a great place to start. It has all the tools to take you from acquisition to editing to graphics, and finally to DVD and/or the web, and that’s where “Basic Training for Adobe CS4 Production Premium” is going to help. Hosted by Tim Kolb, an Emmy award winner, Tim has his work cut out for him, as the PPCS4 can seem very daunting, if it’s your first time using it.

Tim Kolb is your guide in learning Adobe's Production Premium CS4

 

My first piece of advice is to head over to www.adobe.com, and download the free 30 day trail of the Production Premium CS4 software so you can follow along. Secondly, keep in mind that this is a DVD-Rom, meaning that you will need a computer to play it back on, not a regular DVD set-top player.

As an experienced editor and motion designer, I can be pretty critical of products like these, because I didn’t have the luxury of DVD’s and web training to help guide me through learning the in’s and out’s of these programs, as I tackled After Effects at version 3.5 (yes, that long ago), but I have to say that right off the bat I was pleasently surprised by how COD has laid out this disc. Here is the breakdown of what you will be learning:

LESSONS:
1. On Location™
2. Soundbooth® and Premiere Pro®
3. Illustrator®
4. Photoshop®
5. After Effects®
6. Encore®
7. Flash®

SUITE TECHNOLOGIES
8. Metadata
9. Media Encoder
10. 3D in Photoshop® and After Effects®
11. Bridge
12. Dynamic Link
13. Device Central

Now, the important thing to keep in mind is that COD has laid this out from shooting to editing to sound work to graphics to DVD to web. Basically the whole process that you will NEED to understand to take a project from paper to Disc/Web, and then, they look at other important programs that are installed with the PPCS4 (under Suite Technologies) that you will need to be familiar with before you venture out into open waters. For me, the most interesting lesson on the disc was the very first one, which covers On Location CS4, but more importantly it covers important topics like your video scopes (what they are and what they do), calibrating color bars, color bars and blue filters, and more! This is a great lesson on On Location CS4 and basic television 101, so whatever you do, don't skip ahead!

The most informative information on the disc for television newcomers!

I also want to mention that after you get through the training for On Location, you can follow along with Tim, as COD has provided project files on the DVD-ROM for you to use.

All the projects are available on the DVD-Rom

As you start to work ahead, you will notice that you are building a complete project from start to finish all about the GTX1 Super Car. You look at the editing of your video project and audio work in Premiere Pro and Soundbooth CS4, then, you look at creating a DVD cover and label in Illustrator CS4, building graphics for animating in Photoshop CS4, animating your Photoshop documents in After Effects CS4, building a DVD (with menu) in Encore CS4, and finally, getting your project to the web with Flash CS4. I have to say that I really like Tim's pacing and teaching style. It is very easy to follow along with, and you will get a great deal of information out of four hours worth of training.

Now, as I mentioned before, there is an added bonus to this DVD-Rom, and that is that Tim not only covers the basic of the core applications to the Production Premium CS4, but he takes a look at other features and applications that are installed with it, that you might not even realize are there. First, and most importantly he covers Metadata, which has become the core of Adobe's intercenectivty between the different applications in the suite, he covers the Media Encoder, which is important for creating files for the web, DVD and even Blu-ray, he looks at the relationship between 3D in Photoshop and in After Effects, he then takes us through the Bridge, and explains what it is, and why you will want to use it, then it's on to Dynamic Link, and how it connects the applications together, and finally he looks at Device Central and how it will help you create content for mobile technology.

Device Central will help you prepare your files for mobile technology

Can you believe that you get all this training for $99 US? As I said before, it's a great deal for not only people who have just purchased this software package, but it's great for people who are sitting on the fence and can't decide whether to plunk down their hard earned $1699 US. Why not invest $99 to see if it's worth spending $1699.

In the end, Class on Demand's “Basic Training for Adobe CS4 Production Premium” is a good primer for people who are new to post production and/or are new to Adobe's products, and either want to start working right away, or decide if the suite is right for them. I highly recommend it, it's available for $99 US for both Mac and Windows, and you can check it out at www.classondemand.net .