Production Values on PVC by Mark Christiansen

Editors can take advantage of advanced stabilization in Premiere Pro CS5.5

Warp Stabilizer was arguably the biggest addition to After Effects CS5.5. Once you understand how to use it, it’s a tool that can change the way you shoot; if you find yourself without a tripod or any kind of stabilization with a camera as notoriously unsteady as a DSLR, even on a moving shot, you can end up with footage that can look as if a dolly or SteadiCam were used to take it.

For editors and shooters who work more in Premiere Pro than in AE, this is clearly a case where Dynamic Link, the technology bridge between the two apps, is useful. Warp Stabilizer isn’t part of Pr, and it is relatively straightforward for basic usage even for the casual AE user. This article not only walks you through how to achieve shot stabilization on clips in a Pr edit, but it opens the door to how to use Dynamic Link generally, for those who’ve wished they had a better handle on it.

We begin in Pr, with an edit. I have a collection of shots that were taken handheld and head-mounted, with a 7D and GoPro, respectively. The handheld shots are intended to be lock-offs, while the head-mounted shots are intended to be smooth and dolly-esque. Hello dolly? Nope, goodbye!

The simple edit contains of shots that play back perfectly without transcoding thanks to Mercury Playback Engine optimization combined with an nVidia CUDA card, a huge Pr advantage unavailable in AE.  read more...