These are some quick tips for more precise audio work in Premiere Pro …
Setting up your workspace and switching your sequence to Audiounits so you can line up audio clips better in your sequence.
THIS IS THE VIDEO I WAS WORKING ON IN THAT PROJECT: vimeo.com/66087839
blog: film-sound-color.tumblr.com
music (via VIMEO MUSIC STORE):
6th Sense
Voice-Over was recorded with the SAMSON G-TRACK …. test & review will be online soon
this my latest project i shot and edited / color graded…
here is the thing well i can’t decide what version works better…the normal 16:9 / 1.78:1
or the 2.39:1 version…
let me know what u think:
16:9 / 1.78:1
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2.39:1
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UPDATE: Thanks for all the feedback here, on twitter, facebook, LiftGammaGain Forum … seems like the 2.39:1 version is the winner … even the basketball girls like it more … 
… a new Tutorial page is updated and there will be more in the coming weeks & months.
If you have any software or workflow question, please let me know in the comments section i will see to get to it as soon as I can.
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the tutorial page can be found here
well here are some new desktop backgrounds … click on the pictures to get the full rez version
( its optimzsed for a 27″ but also works on any other 1920×1080 screen )
PostDontStop desktop background – 2560×1440
PostDontStop desktop background – 2560×1440
PostDontStop desktop background – 2560×1440
PostDontStop desktop background – 2560×1440
PostDontStop desktop background – 2560×1440
PostDontStop iPad lock screen
iPad Screen Background
So since the great fellows from PostChat had the great idea of having a #PostDontStop Day
here is some nice stuff in celebration to win for you guys:
here are the infos about how u can win this and other cool stuff:
http://www.aotg.com/postchat/2012/11/24/render-render-the-fifth-of-december/
or go the the shop and buy one …or other stuff:
http://550user.spreadshirt.de
just watch the whole thing …. so great to get a lil inside of editing Breaking Bad! … watch it ….NOW!
Thanks to lacpug for getting Kelley Dixon on the stage and recording & sharing it!
I now can confirm with the updated drivers for the nvidia card (GT120+GTX480) that PProCS6 works perfectly smooth even with a lot of MagicBulletLook use (h246 and ProRes clips / 1080p25)
here are some links you might want to check:
QUADRO & GEFORCE MAC OS X DRIVER RELEASE for 10.8.2
http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.05f02-driver.html
current CUDA for 10.8.2:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda-mac-driver.html
Optimize rendering settings:
http://film-sound-color.tumblr.com/post/31268656116/if-u-have-issues-exporting-or-even-rendering-stuff
GPU for Resolve9 AND PremierePro CS6 in ONE system:
http://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?threads/gpu-for-resolve9-and-premierepro-cs6-in-one-system.580/
How To Enable GPU Cuda in Adobe CS6 for Mac:
http://film-sound-color.tumblr.com/post/26071716910/how-to-enable-gpu-cuda-in-adobe-cs6-for-mac-by
thats my CUDA status on my 2009 MacPro
if u run MacOS 10.8.1 / PPro 6.0.2
make sure u have CUDA 5.0.24 and Nvidia driver 1.3.4.0 (304.00.00f20) running really helps and makes PPro more stable! (not tested or even updated to MacOS 10.8.2 yet tho’)
QUADRO & GEFORCE MAC OS X DRIVER
http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.00f20-driver.html
NVIDIA CUDA 5.0 FOR MAC RELEASE
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda-mac-driver.html
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Just some nice Video clips i have found … make sure u watch them!
Great inside of what is important and how editors work …
also you might wanna read this (now i know that is not new but some – like me – might have missed those posts)
Editing ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo‘
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Oliver Peters
creativecow.net: 4K DI on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
…and of course this one (even though you really might have seen this one)
(UPDATE JULY/11/2012 … plz scroll down)
A lot of numbers flying around in the interwebs regarding the power of CUDA in Premiere Pro. Mostly they are about how much layers of blur or how many “tracks” of HD video can be played in realtime without dropped frames without rendering and stuff like that. All that is very nice and indeed the combination CUDA & Premiere Pro is very powerful. In Fact its the most impressive native codec / footage performance I have seen and experienced so far – if you have a powerful machine.
On a 2006 MacPro you will not have the same experience at all.
Anyway – i wanted to see how that “translates” to a real life / real work project. Especially with things like MagicBulletLooks.
After seeing a post from Juan Salvo about what Nvidia Card might be the best in terms of CUDA power I was curious how a GTX285 and GTX480 will perform in a real work test.
So for this test i used a rather typical 4min 20sec project. Mostly h264 files from a DSLR, some ProRes files, some HDV files, a few AfterEffects titles (via Dynamic Link) … just a Stereomix-Track from ProTools (wave file). A usual edit - we do all the time – for a Corporate film clip. Color Grading was done via MagicBulletLooks on every clip (like we do all the time) The MagicBullet effects i created look like that:
So in the end a “Everyday-Project / Edit” for us.
I used the DSLR 1080p25 project preset in Premiere Pro. No other effects were used. Nothing fancy
All that on a 2009 MacPro 4,1, 8 Core 2.26 GHz, 32 GB Ram, 7200 rpm Hard drives, on MacOS X 10.7.3. CUDA Driver 4.2.7, GPU Driver 1.3.4.0 (270.00.00f01)
I used different combinations of Nvidia Graphics Cards. GT120 (standard card of the MacPro 4,1 ) + GTX285 (Mac Card) GT120+GTX480 (Window card that works with MacOS Lion with the Nvidia driver …. with out boot screen though) and GTX285 and GTX480 the GT120. The GT120 was used to connect the screens and GTX card for CUDA processing only ( at least that is what was recommended by many sites and ppl)
I also tested the single GTX cards – so I connected the screens to those for these tests. (I always used DELL 17” + DELL 22”)
Here is the edit I used for that test … just so you have a better idea what i’m talking about.
Since I did not get any realtime playback even with 1/4 resolution with all that MagicBulletLooks on the clips I had to render to see any “moving pictures” with the final grade … with all the cards and combinations)
here are the numbers:
So even though the combination of GT120 + GTX card might work good for CUDA processing only it actually it’s very bad for stuff like MagicBulletLooks or Colorista 2 that uses OpenGL for GPU processing and so the GT120 slows everything down quit a bit. Also the GTX285 that actually is a Mac Card is quite unstable in terms of crashes and freezing the app during render or export ( = PPro crashes ) … so in the end the GTX480 is the better salutation (here is how I did get the card to work.
One side-note though: Sadly Premiere Pro doesn’t seem to use the rendered preview data for exports. So even if you activated the option “use preview” that really doesn’t change that much export times. So for long projects with a lot of 3rd party effects on clips export times are getting quite long. That is a big issue.
Conclusion:
- The Combination of GT120+GTX card did not work that good especially if things like MagicBullet Looks are used.
- GTX 480 works best
- Encoding via Adobe MediaEncoder is slower especially if you count the time it takes to “send” the project to the MediaEncoder
- The option “use previews” for export doesn’t really work
I will test an edit with transcoded ProRes footage soon just so i can see if that changes anything. I still have not found the best Workflow for Premiere Pro – so hang in there and stay tuned.
UPDATE JULY/02/2011:
so i did the whole ProRes Sequence Preset settings for better “use previews” and therefore faster export times thing:
… but did not really change a thing:
Render time was 20:36 (so around 2 min longer than native) … export time was 17:04 so not really faster than the 16:46 export time i got with native or the 17:09 export time native to ProResLT)
UPDATE JULY/11/2012:
So I still testing stuff to find the “best” workflow and settings for Premiere Pro. I’m still on a “voyage” to figure out the “use Preview” issue … I tried all kind of stuff – deactivation of CUDA – transcoding footage to ProResLT and working with that in a ProResLT sequence – using Blackmagic uncompressed Sequence settings ….
… everything I could come up with … still no real change basically export time = render time even if I rendered everything before. My guess: Its a OpenGL/MagicBullerLooks thing, because some people actually seem to benefit from the “use preview” … just not with MBL stuff . See: Biscardi Creative Blog - Continuing Tales of an FCP Switcher – CS6 workflow, for now
So anyway I also did compare Premiere Pro vs. FCPX vs. AVID MC6 vs. FCP7 with the same project (new – a bit different form the initial test). still around 4:16, same footage (Transcoded to ProResLT), same edit, same MagicBulletLooks settings/preset.
Premiere Pro CS6
Here are the results of that Test:
So apparently even FCP7 smokes FCPX in terms of render time of MagicBulletLooks stuff. Also FCPX crashed like every 5-10 minutes while rendering. AVID MC6 did a good job but since it was linked AMA ProRes Footage “overall performance” did not feel as solid as PPro or even FCP7. The old school FCP7 worked actually quite OK – not surprisingly so due to ProRes transcoded footage. So at the end of the day PremierePro is “solid average” – quite usable though I guess … for now … I still will have an eye on all that and let you know as soon as I find out new stuff or solutions.
FCPX
FCP7
AVID MC6
Well to make a long story short after todays “discussion” about the sound of trailers especially the kind of bad sound of the latest Batman Trailer here are some of the as i call them reference trailers for good sound design & sound mix. But let me talk about some of the issues I’ve heard - especially today – real quick. There are several things going on that result in a real issue in terms of sound that in the end kinda demolish the whole trailer experience (since many filmmakers say sound is 50% of a movie … well that is also true for the trailer, now isn’t it?!) The First issue is maybe a not so good recording of an dialogue or / and not the best edit or cleaning up of that (maybe even no ADR done yet). Second issue is a some sort of bad mix. Loud Music & too much Sounds playing at the same time. And 3rd … after all that / on top of that a kind of poor encoding at the post facility but also on YouTube.
There also was a lil discussion about how stuff is viewed / listened to … like on Phones or iPads or Notebooks and whatnot… but in the end it should not matter that much, it should sound good on almost every device, shouldn’t it?
I talked a lil bit about that on that blog post a few days back.
But as i said there are some examples of really good work out there that are actually really good. Listen to that and “extract” some “knowledge” about the sound for a film, movie or Project out of all this. All that kinda applies not only to a mix for a big movie or an awesome trailer. So all i want to do with that is to invoke people to care more and think more about sound… that’s all:
oh and BTW that is the Batman trailer that i was talking about … really makes me kinda sad bcuz the trailer it self (pictures and stuff) really is great and so will be the movie in the end (hopefully)
but that is (kinda) just a bit embarrassing especially for a big Hollywood movie.
BTW also take a look at some of the awesome work soundworkscollection is doing with great BTS of the sound work for great movies … here are some of my favorites:
also if you want to see & hear more about sounddesign & soundpost & sound-mix & stuff
join the “its all about audio” vimeo group
