Visual Effects and Finishing for Editors: Boris FX for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro

Course Description

In this two-day course, you’ll receive a thorough overview of the Boris FX suite of visual effects plug-ins for professional After Effects and Premiere Pro users. The course combines instructor-led training and hands-on practice to introduce you to Sapphire, Continuum and Mocha from Boris FX. Boris FX plug-ins are widely used in broadcast and feature film post-production for their ability to create limitless creative looks and advanced visual effects directly inside After Effects and Premiere Pro.

What You’ll Learn:

Learn advanced techniques used by After Effects and Premiere Pro users to fully utilize plug-ins for professional finishing:

• Creating custom transitions and looks.
• Combine and develop advanced creative preset libraries.
• Animating 3D Text, Lower Thirds and graphic looks.
• Planar Tracking and Masking for editing and effects.
• Keying, Image Restoration and general footage fixing techniques.

Prerequisites:

• Practical working knowledge of Mac OS X or Windows skills.
• A background in editing, production, or post-production is strongly recommended

Outline:

1. General Overview of Boris FX Tools: Continuum / Sapphire / Mocha Pro

• About Boris FX - Developer of plug-ins for all major editing and effects software
• Why Boris FX plug-ins are used by professional editors, colorists and effects artists.
• What is Continuum
• What is Sapphire
• What is Mocha

2. Working With Transition Effects

• Applying and modifying transitions.
• Continuum Transitions, FX Browser and onscreen UI.
• Keyframing and animating.
• Sapphire Transition Builder: build and customize transitions.

3. Titling & Graphics

• 2D Titling, 3D Titling & 3D Objects
• 3D Text and Title Studio
• Build and animate lower thirds and title templates
• Apply effects to titles and using Sapphire Builder presets
• Pan & Zoom for animating stills.

4. Image Effects and FInishing Techniques

• Applying effects and looks: glows, blurs, vignettes, etc
• Keyframing and presets
• Broadcast Safe
• Beat Reactor for audio synchronization
• Lens Flare Designer for advanced Lens Flares
• Sapphire Builder for custom effects creation
• Create hand-held camera motion with Shake filter.

5. Keying and Compositing

• General keying: Luma keying, Chroma keying
• Primate Studio for advanced keying
• Difficult keying scenarios: transparency & spill
• Realistic compositing, light wrap techniques.

6. Masking & Tracking for Editors with Mocha

• Basics of planar tracking for editing
• Mocha interface overview
• Creating masks for effects isolation in Continuum & Sapphire
• Masking for color correction.
• Understanding surface, linking for Mocha basics
• Mocha Shapes for plug-ins: Witness Protection, Beauty, Glow, Remover

7. Image Restoration and Finishing Techniques

• Fixing problem shots: sharpening & flicker
• Skin smoothing and beauty shots
• Fix and remove dropouts and dead pixels
• Remove logos and objects
• Stabilize and smooth jittery camera movement

10. Mocha Pro for advanced compositing

• Planar tracking techniques: fix drifts and track offsets
• Replace screen inserts and cell phones
• Stabilization
• Advanced Object Removal