I’m often called upon to do video work for various Summer Camps, Organizations and friends. I have a very basic understanding of Adobe After Effects but considering my job as a youth pastor I have an advanced understanding of Keynote. I have learned over the years that for simple transitions & overlays Keynote along with Adobe Premiere’s built in blending modes is a simple way to make animated overlays that make your video look clean and professional. This is a walkthrough of my process. Hope it helps
Here are some examples of this method in action:
Summer Camp Promo – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HycTFktYwI
Alliance Redwoods Promo – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ZLO3Fa0vY
Winter Camp – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6rfgW_W46U
Summer Camp Rec Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wweyYP6PkM
Summer Camp Rec Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmJdZSOWYzY
Wedding Recption for Friends – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFu48WHKBuY
Three pieces of software needed
Apple Keynote
Adobe Photoshop (I’m using CS6)
Adobe Premiere Pro (I’m using CS6)
Difficult Level: Intermediate
The Goal: To go from a plain Photoshop file to an animated, composite overlay in Adobe Premiere Pro w/ use of Adobe After Effects.
Photoshop:
(1) open up your photoshop file
(2) Decide which elements you want in your animated composition
(3) Rasterize layers separately
(4) Crop and save each element as a transparent PNG file to the Desktop. It can be anywhere, I just find this easier.
Keynote:
(1) Open up keynote, create a blank presentations with size you need 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080. For our purposes we will do 1280 x 720.
(2) Once your presentation has loaded select and drag all transparents PNGS you saved from photoshop into keynote.
(3) It will look like a jumbled mess, now is where we do our best to mimic our photoshop file in keynote.
(4) the main things we need to know are how to resize and image and how the “layer” function in Keynote works
(5) to resize an image click on it, when the bounding box shows up click and drag the corners while hold shift. This shrinks or expands your layer without distorting it.
(6) In order to move elements forward and backward in your composition right click and choose any of the following options
“Sent to Back” which puts it on the lower most layer
Send Backward which puts it one layer down from it’s current layer
Bring Forward which raises it up one layer from it’s current location
“Brint to Front” which puts it on the upper most layer
(7) You’ll have to experiment to get the exact look and feel that you’re going for with your given composition.
(8) Once you have successfully re-created your composition in Keynote with each individual section in keynote it’s time to animate.
(9) It’s good to have in mind what you want to do ahead of time. For this composition I want
* The grey spatter to pop in and the snowflake to follow close behind and start spinning.
* Once the spinning happens I want the floral design to start wiping across from left to right.
* After that I want “Something” to Scale Big in
* Quickly followed by the left arrow to move in along with Greater and the right arrow from the right.
* Finally I want “Winter Camp 2013” to type itself out in the bottom right corner of “Greater”
(10) I find it easiest to select all elements and set a “Build In” for all of them. It doesn’t matter what one at this point it just makes it easier to change them individually later. Since Keynote doesn’t have a great way to select individual layers to edit like photoshop this is a ghetto way to do so.
(11) Once an animation is set for all of these like “Dissolve” it’s time to start going down the list and applying each of the desired effects to each element.
(12) Once you have done this it’s time work on the timing. This is something you’re going to have to toy with a little bit. You have three main options. Animate “on Click”, “Automatically after above layer” “Automatically with above layer” You can also set a delay so though it’s set to “with” it will wait an allotted time before appearing.
(13) For our purposes “on Click” is not useful so some mixture of “after” and “with” will be best. You can This takes some time to get the timing right. Be patient and experiment. Whenever you make a change you can view the result in the animation window or click play for a larger example.
(14) When you have the desired effect you’re ready to export.
(15) Go to File Export > Quicktime > Fixed Timing > Slide duration 5 – 10 seconds. This can be trimmed later.
(16) Click Next to begin Export
Adobe Premiere Pro
(1) Open up your Project
(2) In your Media Browser navigate to the file you just exported from Keynote. Right Click and “import” into your project bin.
(3) Drag your animated logo onto the Video timeline.
(4) At this point you can be done, your video, once it renders will play just as you exported it and can work as a great opening and closing to your video.
(4) However, if you want to have a little more fun you can use Premieres built in Composition & Overlay effects to give a cooler, more professional looking animation.
(5) To do this select the Animated logo on the timeline and navigate to your “Effect Controls” tab.
(6) Click the arrow next to “Opacity” to reveal all of it’s option.
(7) Click on the “Blend Modes” drop down and watch the various effects. Find the one that works best for you. For this example I have used the “Lighten” mode.
Following these steps you have gone from a simple layered photoshop file to a nice looking animated logo overlaid on top of footage to give it a dynamic feel. If you have any questions please ask them below.
