Newbie: "Ken Burns"-Style Pan & Zoom JPEG Stills

[Maynard123]

I am a new user of After Effects 6.0 and Premiere Pro. I would like to start out by importing a bunch of JPEG still photos and create a slide show with panning and zooming of the stills, sort of in a "Ken Burns" fashion.

I have imported the JPEG files into the project window. I have looked at the manual, but I would sure appreciate any advice on how to approach creating a set of slides with the panning and zooming effect.

Thanks.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

First, instead of JPG files, use bitmaps or PCT files. JPEGS have lost data. If you can, go back to your origianl source and save as BMP or PCT.

Watch your pan and zoom speeds -- too much can make a viewer queasy.

If you're recording voiceovers, do those in a good recording location -- it might be worth it to practice for a while at home, then rent a studio and do it right.

Lay down the voice audio first, then the still images, then apply effects to the images (hint: filters>>imagepan in Premiere), then lay down any sound effects or music last.

Practice on a few seconds.

If you move too quickly through a high-contrast image, you'll get some motion twitter. There are different ways to knock that down. The one that worked best for me was to simply rein in my tendency to move stuff so quickly. Another technique was applying a directional blur. I suppose you could try adding deflicker, but that's never worked for my images. Might work fine for yours (mine were B&W line art with heavy black and heavy white areas).

I just finished a huge project like this. On my last one, Joe Bob Briggs (if you're into B movies, you'll know who he is) wrote "Ah, this is what it would be like if Ken Burns did horror". Heh.

Good luck! Post URLs of your work here!

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[Maynard123]

Thanks Edward...these are great tips!

 

[Maynard123]

Edward...sorry for the newbie question, but I can't find the "filters>>imagepan in Premiere" menu item in Premiere Pro. Is it possible this changed from any early version of Premiere, or am I just looking in the wrong place?

Thanks.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

It's possible. I don't have Pro, so I can't verify. Um, just hit f1 and do a search for "Image Pan".

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[Maynard123]

I found this in the Premiere Pro help:

"The following effects have been discontinued or renamed in Adobe Premiere Pro: Backwards (audio and video), Better Gaussian Blur, Blur, Blur More, Hue and Saturation, Image Pan, Mosaic, Polar, Sharpen More, Strobe, and Video Noise."

I'm sure that there is something equivalent and I will eventually find it. Thanks.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Hm, it would be nice if they explained what happened to that specific filter. You could try Video Motion and see if it does the trick. Historically, Video Motion has been the Rainman of panning tools.

On the other hand, you could simply use After Effects, which is really quite good at this sort of thing.

What tutorials have you run through?

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[Maynard123]

Edward,

I did try the video motion tool and it works great! I click one button called "Motion" on the Effects Controls tab, and I can use my cursor on the monitor as if it were a camera moving around the image. Now, this is cool!

Thanks again for your help!

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

You betcha!

Don't forget us in your speech at the Oscars!

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door