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Advanced Keyframing 2: Keyframing Effects

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Advanced Keyframing 2: Keyframing Effects

Postby Ron » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:09 am

The beauty of Premiere Elements Keyframing feature is its versatility. With it you can not only create motion paths (as we demonstrated in Steve's Tips: Keyframing Basics) but you can also use it control how effects behave over the course of a clip as well as how different effects settings affect the shape and movement of your clip.
Here are three examples of how keyframing can be used to creating moving and changing effects. Naturally, if any of the vocabulary seems challenging, you may want to review the Keyframing Basics article on the Muvipix Products/Complimentary page.

Moving transitions and flying clips

Image

In Keyframing Basics, we discussed how to pan and zoom around a still, a motion path that implies that a camera is moving across your slide. But keyframed motion is not limited to still pictures and, by scaling a clip down, you can even create paths that imply that your clips are flying past your video frame.
In the illustration above, I've taken a short video clip and set an initial Motion keyframe point with a Scale setting of 40% and Position settings of 870, 240 — which, on a 720x480 NTSC frame means that the clip is centered vertically and, horizontally, just outside the right side of my video frame.
Moving the CTI about half a second to the right, press the Create Keyframe button next to Scale to lock the scale at 40% and set Position to 360, 240, (automatically creating a new keyframe for those settings) which should center the clip now in the Monitor.
Move the CTI about a half second further to the right, press the Create Keyframe button next to Position to lock it and change Scale to 100%. The clip will fill the frame.
We've just created a simple fly-in effect. Our clip comes in, at 40% of its size, from the right, then swells to fill the frame. We could, in fact, save this as a custom Preset, selecting the option to lock it to the beginning of a clip, and use it as an in-transition.
By reversing the procedure (starting at this position and, toward the end of the clip, Scaling to 40% with one keyframe and then changing Position in the next keyframe to -160, 240, we can create a similar out-transition — sending our clip off the left side of the screen. By combining this out-transition on an out-going clip and the above in-transition on an in-coming clip, we can create a transitional sequence in which clips seem to be flying in from the right and out to the left.
By down-scaling and creating similar motion paths for clips on several video tracks, you can create a video collage of moving images moving across your screen — a popular effect used for opening credits on a number of TV dramas 20 years ago.
Also, by placing this scaled and positioned, motion-pathed clip on Video track 2 and another clip on Video track 1 below it, you can create your own personalized, moving Picture-in-Picture effect.

Animated cropping

Image

Virtually any effect allows for keyframed animation to be applied to it. By keyframing various settings for the Crop effect, for instance, you can open and close the cropping on a clip, animating the trimming of any or all sides.
In the illustration above, I've taken a standard 720x480 video clip, applied the Crop effect and, in the Properties panel, I've created an initial keyframe of Left 29%, Top 26%, Right 38% and Bottom 42%, framing the child's face and cropping away the rest of the video frame.
Moving the CTI halfway through the clip, I set a second keyframe to Left 9%, Top 18%, Right 38% and Bottom 40%. The playback of this clip between these two keyframes will begin with a close cropping of the child's face, widening to reveal the woman on the left.
Moving the CTI further along in the clip, I changed the Right setting to 12% and press the Create Keyframe button for the other settings to force keyframe points to be created. Playback between these two keyframes, then, widens from a shot of the woman on the left and the child to the woman on the right.
Finally, I moving the CTI further along in the clip, I change all of the Crop settings to 0%, revealing the entire video frame.
The keyframed Crop animation, when played then, tells a story. It begins with the tight cropping of the boy's face, with no other context, implying that this is the world from this little boy's point of view. We widen the shot to reveal one person with him and then another — obviously significant people in this boy's life — finally widening our shot to reveal that we are in a car, on a trip.
By isolating the elements of the video frame with animated cropping then, we've created a point-of-view as well as a hierarchy of significance to all of the elements in the shot. (Effects are fun, but it's even more interesting when they have thematic purpose too.)
Varying the settings with keyframes opens up a whole host of effects opportunities. Keyframing the settings for the Ripple effect changes it from a static effect to animated ripples. (Try setting an initial Ripple keyframe for your clip with the Ripple Amount set at 100 then, a few seconds later, create a keyframe for the Ripple Amount at 0. How's that for a cool way to transition into a scene?!)
Another cool effect to keyframe: Replicate. This effect, which divides your video frame into quadrants and sub-quadrants of duplicates of your video, can be keyframed so that it begins with one, then melts into four copies of your video frame, one in each corner, then to 16, then to more than you can count!

Creating a 3D move.

Image

By keyframing the Basic 3D effect, you can make your clip appear to lean backward and forward in three-dimensional space.
In my illustration above, I've applied the Basic 3D effect to my clip and have set an initial Tilt keyframe of -89, just short of the clip lying so flat we wouldn't even be able to see it!
Moving my CTI a half a second to the right, I’ve set Tilt to 0, which reveals the video in the frame with no distortion at all. (If it doesn't fill your video frame, it's because another setting for this effect is Distance to Image — so that, in addition to flipping around, you can animate your clip's movement toward or away from you.)
Moving the CTI another half second or so further to the right, I set Tilt to 180, which turns the video image complete upside down. If you play back the sequence, you'll actually be able to watch your clip do a somersault.
Add a few more Tilt keyframes, alternating 0 and 180, and you can keep your clip tumbling head over heels. You can also do the same rotation from side to side using the Swivel settings — or even combine them into total insane flip and turn sequence.
This a definitely an attention-getting way to fly into a scene!

Changing effect intensity over time

You can also use keyframes to control the intensity of an effect. An obvious example of that might be transitioning into or out of an old film look (keyframing the Old film effect).
You can also work with some of the more “hallucinogenic” effects (such as Posterize, Fine Edges and Metallic) to create some strange and interesting sequences.
Regards,
-Ron

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