Blending two images into each other in Adobe Premier Pro 2.0

I was recently looking for an easy way to do a certain effect in Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. I figured it out, so I'd thought I'd post my solution. Below is the copy of the post on Adobe's forums.

Link to the movie demonstrating the desired effect

Link to the PSD file used for the image matte

Pasted from Adobe's forum:
I am looking for away to accomplish an effect where I have two images on the screen. One fills the left half, one fills the right half. They blend into each other in the middle. The pictures then each move toward the middle and as they move, they continue to blend into each other. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to accomplish this. I would think you could just take a photoshop document that is half white, half black, blended in the middle, and then apply a luma matte to both images with one of them reversed. The problem with this (and any other type of matte I've tried to make work) is that the matte moves with the image. Any thoughts?

***************

After sleeping on this one I figured out a simple way to do it. Because the image matte moves with any motion keyframes on the image, I put the image in its own sequence, and animated it there. I then placed the image matte on the sequence, and since the sequence has no motion keyframes, the image matte stays put. All that's left is to then put the matte'd sequence on top of the other image that's moving into the center (which doesn't need a soft edge or anything else because the matte'd sequence is on top of it). I've put a sample of what I'm talking about on my blog at:
http://www.beyondpictures.com/blog/bp/2006/04/blending-two-images-into-each-other-in.html

FS-4, Citidisk DV, and other tapeless recording options

Well, I've spent the better part of the day looking for an inexpensive, reliable tapeless recording system. There isn't one - at least not on my budget. Firestore's FS-4 looks like a great solution, but it's still a little pricey ($795 to $1,795 depending on the capacity and options). I found it at amazon.com for $744 but that's still a little rich for my poor budget.

I am amazed at the complete lack of options here. How long have MiniDV tapes been around and there's still not a decent affordable solution? It's not much more complex than a 40GB external drive - get it down in the $400-$500 dollar range and I'd consider it.

The only other competitor I could even find to Firestore was Shining Technology's CitiDisk DV. It seems to have all the options of the Firestore and twice the capacity for about the same price. It all sounds great, but there's a couple of things that make me nervous. From reading through their FAQ's, it's obvious they haven't bothered to have a person that actually speaks English proofread their documents. Plus, the latest updated FAQ I could find was August 2005 - more than six months ago. There are no distributors in the U.S. (they had a link to apple's store, but I couldn't find it anywhere on there). I did find the HDV version (supports both HD and DV) at bhphotovideo.com (versions ranging from $1,124.95 to $1,374.95.

With all the embedded Linux devices these days, can't someone make a simple camera mountable enclosure device that handles all of the formats, scene creation, etc., and let you buy your own laptop hard drive and stick in it? I guess the industry is moving more towards tapless video cameras, like Panasonic's P2, that have all the functionality of tapeless recording built into the camera.

I spent a little (keyword: little) time looking at P2 (panasonic's "revolutionary" tapeless format.) Sounds great if you have a panasonic camera and a ton of money - but not too relevant to me and my Canon GL2.

The main thing driving me towards a tapeless scenario is time. I sometimes film weddings in the morning, and the client wants to show nicely edited footage at the wedding dinner or reception that evening. It makes for a stressful day trying to film, capture, edit, render, and burn and a very short amount of time. I'm already forking out a fair amount of dough upgrading to a beefier computer (and the latest version of Adobe Production Studio - those could be separate blogs in and of themselves), but directly editing from my captured footage would sure save me some valuable time.

External Microphone for Canon GL2

I have recently spent a fair amount of time researching which mic I should get for my Canon GL2. It is amazing how much information there is on the web - there a lot of people with a lot more time on their hands than I have! (You snicker as you note that I have time to blog this!) Anyway, I finally settled on the Rode NTG-2. I debated between that and the Audio Technica AT897. At the end of this article I'm going to list the sites I used to research this - there's a wealth of information out there. I will give you the brief reasons why I decided on this mix though. Cost - it is slightly cheaper than the AT897, and a really good mic for the money (about $249 retail.)

Performance - I was looking for a shotgun mic to concentrate the audio on what I was shooting at, eliminate the camera noise (although the GL2 does a great job with this already), and I wanted a mic I could position anywher by running XLR cables. I did look long and hard into XLR to mini-jack adapter unit, like the beatchtek dxa-6 (far superior to Canon's MA-300 for about the same cost) but in the end ended up just getting a simple XLR to mini-jack cable, mainly to cut costs (it was $13.00 as opposed to around $260 for a powered adapter that mounts to the camera).

I eventually will probably get a product like the beachtek dxa-6 for a couple of reasons. It will be nice to have the ability to supply phantom power for one. Also, I'd have the ability to have more than one mic and adjust each mic's levels prior to going into the camera. The Rode NTG-2 tends to overpower the GL2 in noisy situations - I've found that I am occasionally getting distortion, something that never happened using the GL2's mic. I've tried switching to manual levels on the GL2, but then it's a pain to adjust in situations where the noise level is changing (particularly when filming a speaker far away and having applause and laughter interspersed that overwhelms the audio feed). Plus it's near impossible to adjust left and right channels simutaneously on the GL2. The GL2 does a great job with it's automatic audio levels feature though - I just need to take the signal from the NTG-2 down a notch before coming into the camera, something I can do with the DXA-6.

Portability - I'm going to have situations where I need to position a mic near a speaker or stage (like getting wedding vows), and have the camera a fair distance away. For this reason I needed a standard XLR mic that could function as a normal mic, not just a video camera mic. Although if that's what your looking for, the Rode VideoMic is a great, inexpensive ($150) option for the consumer looking to get better sound from his camera and eliminate camera noise.

Well, I've said enough (although there's lots more to say!) Here's a list of links:

TOP 5 SHOTGUNS! (for those with a budget)- READ THIS! - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking
TOP 5 SHOTGUNS! (for those with a budget)- READ THIS! Audio
Canon Accessory Annex Home Page
"right angle xlr" mini jack - Google Search
Rode VideoMic - Camera Mounted Shotgun Microphone
BeachTek Audio Adapters - DXA-6

BeachTek Audio Adapters. We are here as your resource for unique audio products for your camcorder. Our customers include everyone from the hobby videographer to seasoned professional around the world. Unique audio accessories for digital camcorders such as the Sony VX1000 and Panasonic EZ1. Our products give you professional features to help you get superb results each and every time.
Review of the Audio-Technica AT897 Short Shotgun Microphone
A review of the Audio-Technica AT897 short shotgun microphone
Amazon.com: NTG2: Musical Instruments
Amazon.com: NTG2: Musical Instruments
The Must Have's by Martha Smith - The Digital Journalist
4073a
Camcorderinfo.com Message Board - outdoor interview mic? mke-300 vs rode videomic
This is a discussion forum powered by vBulletin. To find out about vBulletin, go to http://www.vbulletin.com/ .