Editing fast to music.

[skettalee]

Im making a commercial for hip hop producer training and I need to make it 100% in After Effects with effects all over and everything. But my big thing is I have to edit the commercial and effects around a music track. Maybe I dont know what im doing but in after effects it never handled music greastly because everytime I try to play the timeline it has to rerender the audio tracks and takes forever each time making it the slowest process in the world to edit to the music. Does anyone know a way around this? Im sure there has to be. i mean any other editing software can play music just fine really fast but even with the quality low, everytime i replay, it rerenders the whole audio track. HELP?

[Owen]

You're actually going to import all of the raw footage into AE and go from there?

It might be simpler to cut the video in the NLE of your choice and then just deal with the sections that need FX later on in AE... even if the whole thing needs FX I can't imagine it being best to cut the entire project in AE.

[Rosestar]

Really, AE is a great app, but should be used for it's strengths, compositing and FX and as a adjunct to a good NLE.

[skettalee]

Yeah but the thing is, i dont think I will be using video at all in my commercial. It will all be motion graphics for the most part. I know its gotta be possible to do it. I will have PSD files and AI files flying around with text coming up like you would see some MTV commercials are and stuff. And I want all that to go to music perfectly. How can AE not be able to get this done all alone?

[Neil Rowe]

if you hit the "0" key you can preview the audio on the timleine alone. and you can expand the audio track to see where beats fall. then you can line the stuff up visually. its not bad doing it like this at all. but i think you should do a rough outline of what you want to do in an NLE and synch it with the music. and then import it as a track in AE.. then you can follow along with that track and do the comp, and then just turn that track off when your done.. anyway teres alot of things you can do to make it easier to audio synch. i use the above methods the most i guess pending the project, but it also pends your style and preferences of worflow.

[kai]

if you hit the "0" key you can preview the audio on the timleine alone.

it's actually the period key on the numeric keypad... the zero is RAM preview... not to nitpick ya IAL :)

[Neil Rowe]

doh! but they are so close together!
http://www.marnin.com/images/homer/homerdoh.gif


yeah.. what kai said. he actually mentioned that to me some time back. im just so used to hitting that "0" key.

[skettalee]

Ok thanx. I will keep that in mind when I begin the project. What would be good ways to set up marks on the NLE to know when I want things to happen in AE ? Any examples?

[Owen]

Oh I misunderstood. Well then, one thing I'd do is break it down into pieces (comps). That way you end up with a couple dozen short comps that you can then string together in one Master comp. Otherwise that's gonna be a very crowded timeline. This may be obvious, but might as well be pointed out.

[Neil Rowe]

sketta,

an easy way would be to jot down the timecode for key events, and be sure to use the same timcode setup in AE.
or again you can just make a very very rough copy to see how it all comes together.. a storybord of sorts in your NLE, but time it to the music. and then work off that in your AE comp.

[skettalee]

Thanks for the help. I think im starting to get the feel on how I will create it. Im waiting on the actually music right now to get started so hopefully once I get that, everything will go smooth.

[kai]

Be sure to post clips here for constructive criticism :)

[loyd_christmas]

you might find trapcode soundkey useful trapcode.com

[Funkycoldg]

Couldnt you put the music into premiere and "mark" certain spots on the timeline. and then when you import that Premiere Project into AE it will see those "marks" and you can work off that. Like the marks would be certain spots or beats that you want something to happen.

Hope that made sense, maybe some one can clairify

John G.

[Caution]

hey have you tried the plugin by trapcode called soundkeys? I think that will be your best bet try that.

[skettalee]

We actually have the whole Trapcode library but I dont know how to use Soundkeys and I cant seem to find a tutorial to teach me it. Can someone tell me what it does exactly? Also, using Avid Xpress Pro 4.3 and AE 6.5. No Premiere in the mix.

[JustinT]

what ver of AE do you have? - not at home now so can't check - but from memory ver 6.0-6.5 has a plugin to convert the sound beats (depending on how you configure it)to key frames - similar to sound keys (haven't done a comparo so can't say what the dif is), but will save $$ on purchasing sound key.