The custom presets in Adobe After Effects are a great way to quickly animate your layers. The latest version of After Effects has many different presets to choose from and you can apply them to text, backgrounds or any other layer. The often misunderstood concept about presets is that once you apply them that is all you get. These presets are only a jumping off point, there are several presets that look great just the way they are but every preset is fully editable. The two Genius DV logos here were created using the exact same preset and I just modified the color and the motion for a completely different look. The only way to get familiar with presets is to practice and do not be afraid to modify them. You will be amazed how well these presets work and how simple it is to get the look you need.

Final Cut Pro, Avid Adobe all run on Macs, and there is a often overlooked function of the Mac OS that can be very useful. By holding down the Control key while you use the scroll wheel of the mouse, you will zoom in on whatever is on screen. By simply scrolling back the other way while holding down the control key, you will zoom out. This is very helpful when attempting to view an online video a little larger than it has been displayed on a particular webpage. Often going to the only other option of full screen, will cause too much distortion. It is also very helpful for reading small print. Within an editing application the Control/Scroll function can be easier for quick zoom in and outs that Command + or -. I  use this function all the time.

Setting Keyframes in After Effects is a very simple process. When the stopwatch is active for a specific property, After Effects automatically adds or changes a keyframe for the property at the current time whenever you change the property value. Follow these easy steps to set your keyframes in After Effects:

1. Move the current-time indicator to the time where you want to begin the animation.
2. Set the layer property to the value you want at that point in time; for example, move the layer to a new position.
3. Click the Stopwatch icon  next to the property name to activate it. After Effects creates a keyframe at the current time for that property value.
4. Move the current-time indicator to the time where you want to add an additional keyframe.
5. Change the value for the property in the layer outline.

(Steps provided by Adobe After Effects CS3 Help) You can also copy and paste the same keyframe values anywhere in the selected layer. This is a fast way to add the same values and have them repeat.

GeniusDV has been awarded Google’s Search Enterprise Superstar Award.  This award has been given to GeniusDV for creative uses of Google’s search engine appliance. Google Superstar Award Winners receive a physical award made out of Legos, along with other Google goodies.

How does this award help our customers?

Our mission will be to help video production and service companies position themselves at the top of Google’s search engine rankings for specific keywords within the video production industry. 

Here’s the good news!  Other than your physical knowledge and hard work, there is little or no cost in achieving high quality rankings within Google’s search engine.  Don’t be scammed by companies charging hefty amounts of money to promote your site to #1. 

To give you an idea of what drives GeniusDV:  On an average weekday we receive over 2700 unique visitors.  That’s roughly 72,000 unique visitors a month.  Those visitors type in over 43,000 different keywords to find the GeniusDV website. 

Bottom line, we’d like to offer a service to share how we did this with our customers.  Stay tuned for upcoming workshops and services to learn our search engine secrets.

When you create your DVD in Adobe Encore you can set any  timeline or menu to be your first play!

First play specifies what plays when you insert the DVD or Blu-ray Disc into a player
or open the Flash SWF file in a web browser. Often, this will be an FBI warning
or other copyright information or you could force the viewer to watcha specific ad and while the ad plays you can disable remote functions. Encore automatically sets First Play to the
first element you create in the project. This may not be what you want for your fist play, so to change that you just right click on the desired element that you want for you first play and click set as first play. You can change the first play whenever you want just remember to set it to the timeline or menu that you need to play when the DVD is inserted.

Did you know the latest version of Photoshop CS 3 allows you to import full motion video?