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Information Exchange => Pros & Novices => Topic started by: WingedSerpent on July 15, 2009, 08:11:52 PM



Title: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: WingedSerpent on July 15, 2009, 08:11:52 PM
I'm (hopefully) going to start doing my own movies soon.  Right now I'm simply aquiring the neseccarry materials.  I know that After Effects is used to add effects to film, but can it be used in editing as well? 

I know that you can get some effects done with Premire elements, but it's used for editing. 

It's going to incorporate some Adobe Flash which I already have.  I guess what I'm ultimately asking, is can I make something professional looking using Flash, After Effects, and the Windows movie maker that came free with my PC. 


Title: Re: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: Jim H on July 21, 2009, 08:03:14 PM
From my understanding of it (I've only used After Effects for a few minutes), After Effects can do editing, but it is not designed primarily for it.  You'd be better off with both Premiere Pro and After Effects.  After Effects can open Premiere projects, and do special effects on them.  The integration between the two is excellent.  Premiere, BTW, is a quite good editing app.  It's a tossup which one of the major editing suites is best, but they're all good. 

What kind of effects work are you looking to do?  If there isn't a lot of it or it is fairly basic, you'd probably be fine with any of the major editors.  Like, I use Vegas Pro, and you can do lighting effects, color correction, keying/compositing, basic 2D animation, all that sort of stuff inside of it. 

I'm also curious what you're trying to make.  Windows Movie Maker is adequate for basic editing, but it lacks many advanced features.  Even stuff like reversing video or easily changing video speed can't be done well.  If all you need to do is splice clips together though, it'll be OK. 


Title: Re: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: dean on July 22, 2009, 06:14:29 AM

After Effects is handy for effects work, Premiere is an editing machine, but lacks the processing power for any extreme graphics work.

My lecturer last semester [I study film and television production] basically told me he pretty much uses After Effects for editing and effects work.

Like JimH said though, it depends on what you're doing: I've made some films with small effects work and found Premiere to be sufficient.

The more you have the better you can make things [because no one program can get you absolutely everything] but I've survived just fine with Premiere for a while, but now that I'm starting to get professional I'm expanding my equipment and resources.

Adobe Master Collection is a good catch all for all your needs if you can afford it.  Generally I would say that having Photoshop, Illustrator [for good title production] After Effects and Premiere would be the basics to allow you to produce professional-looking projects.  Maybe a better quality sound editor if you want to do something cool/good quality with sound.

Of course some of the other important things are cameras, lighting equipment and sound gear...

Personally unless you were doing heavy effects work you can survive with just Premiere, since it sounds like you'll be using flash for a fair bit of work.  Keep it all Adobe and you can bounce files pretty easily from program to program with little effort.  I'd generally stay away from Movie maker too: if you have the option of Premiere, which is a professional grade piece of equipment, why would you go lower?


Title: Re: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: Jim H on July 22, 2009, 01:34:43 PM
On another note, if you're planning to buy the Adobe Master suite (from the sounds of things, that seems unlikely though), sign yourself up for a community college course to get a student discount...  That $300 class will you get you something like a $1500 discount.

Personally though, in terms of bang for buck, I think Vegas Pro is the best, or possibly Vegas Platinum.  Vegas Pro has several advanced features the Platinum version lacks (I think the two big ones are track motion and velocity envelopes), but it is a WAY WAY better editor than Movie Maker...  You can get Vegas Pro 8 for around $300ish, and Platinum is like $90-$100.


Title: Re: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: WingedSerpent on July 23, 2009, 11:24:32 AM

What kind of effects work are you looking to do?  If there isn't a lot of it or it is fairly basic, you'd probably be fine with any of the major editors.  Like, I use Vegas Pro, and you can do lighting effects, color correction, keying/compositing, basic 2D animation, all that sort of stuff inside of it.  

I'm also curious what you're trying to make.  Windows Movie Maker is adequate for basic editing, but it lacks many advanced features.  Even stuff like reversing video or easily changing video speed can't be done well.  If all you need to do is splice clips together though, it'll be OK.  

While I don't really want to go into specifics about what they will be, I'll try to tell you what I can.

Right know looks like there is going to be two different ideas I'm working on.  One will have live action sequnece, then going into scenes totally done in Flash.

The other idea will have a live action person interacting with a cartoon character.   I'll probably need some other effects as I develop the stories more.


Title: Re: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: Jim H on July 23, 2009, 02:06:09 PM
I'd say getting After Effects is a good idea.  I'm not too experienced with it, as I said, but I know it has some very powerful compositing and animation tools, which would make cartoon character interaction much easier to do.


Title: Re: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: KreepLX on August 29, 2009, 10:32:17 PM
I had a lot of issues with After Effects when I tried to edit video and audio. When you put your project together, it made me render everything individually because I did not link it correctly. Then when you have everything right in the preview, the render would only do the main video file. After an hour of fooling with it, I just went back to premier and got the job done in 10 minutes. So if you don't know it and can't waste an evening of time, stick to the premier. I just did an effect and imported it into premier.


Title: Re: Adobe After Effects vs Adobe Premire elements
Post by: Vik on March 29, 2010, 10:33:18 AM
Trying to edit a film with adobe after effects would be a huge pain, it's great for effects though. You'd be better off editing in WMM than in after effects :/
If you need an editing program I highly recommend Sony vegas pro.