Editing for Audio, Animatics, and Previz

• • • Laying down a music track early is recommended, for mood, timing and pacing

    • Basic regular editing:

      • • Drag and drop clips from the Project window into the Sequence timeline on a Track.

        • Still images (e.g. artwork *.pngs) may default to 5 seconds duration, which is too slow for the average storyboard keyframe (Edit > Preferences > Timeline > Still Image Default Duration > about 1 or 2 seconds)

        • Use the default Select tool with left-mouse, to drag the ends of clips, and re-time them.

        • Retiming: to change the timing of many clips in the sequence at once:

          • • • • zoom out and box-select all clips in the timeline (or use the "a" shortcut to use the "select all clips to the right" tool)

                • right-click > Speed/Duration

                • type in the number of seconds you want eg: timecode 00:00:01:00 for 1 second each

                • check ON "Ripple Edit, Shifting Trailing Clips"

    • Recording and/or Downloading/Importing Audio

      • • Into a folder inside the Premiere Pro project folder.

        • Using temporary audio, including music, sound fx and voice, is absolutely essential from Version 1 of your project. Timing and emotion will not work without rich audio.

        • See Audio Resources (below):

        • Premiere > Project window > Import > your audio clips

        • Drag and drop Audio clips from the Project window into the Sequence timeline on an audio Track.

        • Right click > Audio Gain > Adjust Gain by > +6 dB, or -6 dB, or desired volume change.

        • Balance the sound mix across the scene, blend background music and fx, to set mood, pacing and timing. An average of +6db is a reasonable starting point for your sound mix.

        • Recording temporary low-quality voice directly into Premiere, with just a headset mic, is a fairly easy and common practice for animation story editors and directors

    • Use the Effects window for

      • • video transitions > dissolves > drag and drop onto clip cut points where 2 clips meet

        • audio transitions > constant power, fade, etc. > drag and drop onto clip cut points where 2 clips meet

        • transitions can also be used on a single clip end, to ramp in or out (e.g. audio volume fade in/out, or video dissolve to/from black)

    • See Tutorial: Premiere Pro Basics

    • Imported files (artwork / footage / sounds / media etc.) linked into Premiere:

      • • Editing off-campus, using GDrive and a local drive (e.g. your own device)

• • • • • • • Download the imported files (artwork/footage/sound), as well as the Premiere Pro project file.

            • When you start Premiere Pro it will probably ask you to Locate (find) the missing imported files again. Usually once you find one missing file, the rest are automatically found by Premiere. Thanks, Adobe!

• • • • • Editing on-campus, this problem should not occur if you are working on the LAN server network folder e.g. \\fs1syd\Students\Public\team-project-name\

        • When you're exporting a new version of the footage *.png files from your Photoshop scene file it is recommended to overwrite the same png folders and filenames every time, without a version number, in order to reduce the importing and re-editing workload in Premiere Pro. It's faster when you don't have to keep searching for the (latest version) pngs, importing them, replacing them in the edit, or doing the edit all over again. So, please export images to the same 'hero' folder & files without a version number. Here are some examples of various naming practices in industry studios:

• • • • • • • (Footage) or (Media), or (Assets), folder, inside the Premiere Project folder

            • scenename vhero or v000, or vHero, or vXXX best/latest version folder of exported storyboard images.

            • Recommended: your Photoshop scene file should please still have a real version number and +backup history folder as usual.

• • • In your animatic video edit, keyframe the position and scale of your artwork clips to show

      • • Background pans - establishing shots, characters running.

        • Zooms - establishing shots, subject focus zooms.

        • To do this in Premiere Pro, use the Effect Controls window to keyframe position and scale of track clips.

        • Complex depth and layering can be achieved if you export some layers by themselves, for example backgrounds, midgrounds and foregrounds; you can scale/move these layers independently from each other.

        • In After Effects, layer clips can be keyframed with position/scale, or use the Camera Tool.

    • A scene is a sequence of camera shots around a specific plot point or location. A shot is a single camera angle, either moving or locked off, within a scene, usually separated by cuts.

    • If your main shots / keys are going well and the schedule permits, a vertical slice may be desirable in your animatic edit. This is simply one shot, in any scene in the show, in which all the keyframes are colored, either with 2D paint and cleanup line, or with 3D lighting test renders/comps. It represents the proposed final look of the show. It is to be edited into the main video Edit, in the normal storytelling sequence order. So your final edited video animatic would be mostly monochrome shots, with one of the shots in color.

    • The edit must provide a clear, competitively entertaining story experience for the target audience, in vision, audio, pacing, and emotional feel.

• • • • Example: https://freesound.org/home

      • Example: http://soundbible.com/free-sound-effects-1.html

      • Example: http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/

      • Example: https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/royalty-free-music/

      • Example: https://www.proudmusiclibrary.com/en/tag/cartoon

      • Example: https://www.zapsplat.com/

      • Example: Search for royalty-free music or production music and then search within the site, for mood, style, and keywords.

You are asked to find temporary audio yourself, including music, sound fx and voice, and use it from Version 1 of your edit. Editing requires rich audio, for emotion and timing, and must be synchronized with your storyboard keys, layout/previz, and animation.

Recording temporary low-quality voice directly into Premiere, with just a headset mic, is the minimum, common practice for animation story editors and directors, and this is an opportunity to become playful. Just grab the nearest student, cleaner, maintenance guy, whoever might sound even remotely like your character, or do it yourself, and have some fun.

• • • Simply click the Voice-Over Record button on an empty Audio Track. You'll have a 3-second countdown while Premiere plays and then records, in real time.

    • You can use the Audio Track Mixer to adjust levels, or edit the clips themselves in the timeline

Audio Plan

Investigate and decide if you're going to do

• Mainly temporary or low-quality sound in pre-production - this is the minimum standard, typical for live action and lower-budget TV animation. Or,

• Mainly high-quality or final sound in pre-production - typical for feature animation, musicals, and music videos.

Collaboration

You are also encouraged to collaborate with audio students or professionals. However, regardless of your audio plan, or collaboration, please don't wait for audio. We expect to see and hear the timing of the edit with temp sound at least, and this is your responsibility, first. Collaboration is also better when you have an animatic with temporary audio, already done, to guide your audio artists, as well as your fellow visual artists. It will be appreciated all-round.

For Production W.I.P.s:

• • • File > Save a Copy > Projectname-EDIT-v##
      Always save a version backup before export

    • Project Window > Select Your Sequence or,
      Sequence Timeline > Select Your Sequence

    • File > Export > Media

    • Format: H264
      Preset: Match Source - Adaptive (Low, Medium, or High) Bitrate.

    • Typical resolution: HDTV 1080p 16:9, square pixels. Typical file size (depends on bitrate): 30MB to 300MB for a 3-minute video, 200MB to 1GB for a 10-minute video. Playback is usually smooth.
    • Effects: [Check] Loudness Normalization, Standard: ITU, Target: -14db LUFS
    • Effects: (Optional) [Check]: Video Limiter on, Compress before clipping 3%

• • • Output folder: Typically, the same location as the Project file.

    • Output name: Projectname-EDIT-v##
      Please use the same name as the Project filename, with the same version ##

    • Export The A/V file will render

EDIT Project - Organization and Sharing

• Before and after all classes, meetings, or work sessions, please ensure all team members and facilitators can access your exported videos, all your working project files and source media, to add to your work, or copy parts of it, for team consistency. This can be done either on-campus via LAN, or via GDrive.

• Access to all backup versions of your working files is also required, for weekly reviews, work-in-progress checking, and grading.