Hollywood Special Effects with Adobe Premiere Elements 3 (Paperback)

~ Carl Plumer (Author)
Key Phrases: add narration, chroma key, clip volume, Premiere Elements, Available Media, Scene Add Marker (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Hollywood Special Effects with Adobe Premiere Elements 3 is a book that will help users get to the next level in video editing, and that next level goes beyond simply splicing together clips and creating simple titles. In no time readers will be overlaying multiple tracks of videos and adjusting transparency; creating Picture-in-Picture overlays; using key frames and motion paths; setting and refining greenscreens and bluescreens; using color effects for emotional impact; and a whole range of other special effects to help them tell their story. What sets this book apart is the author's expertise in carefully showing readers how to execute each of these effects step-by-step in a clear and friendly writing style. With this book, budding filmmakers will be well on their way to becoming the next George Lucas! The accompanying DVD contains royalty free music, sound effects, and video clips from Artbeats, Digital Juice, TwistedTracks, and the Footage Firm (among others).

About the Author

Carl Plumer has worked professionally as a writer, Web developer, multimedia designer, Help systems developer, and documentation manager for high tech companies including Oracle®, Computer Associates™, and Avid® Technology. At Avid, the company that makes the editing system on which virtually all Hollywood films and many television shows are edited, he helped design one of the very first home video editing applications, Avid Cinema™. Carl is the also the author of Que's Easy Adobe® Premiere® Elements 2 and writes regularly about Premiere Elements on his website, www.LearnPremiereElements.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; Pap/DVD edition (October 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789736128
• ISBN-13: 978-0789736123
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #344,369 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #9 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Digital Photography & Video > Adobe Premiere Elements
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun way to really learn Adobe Premiere Elements, January 22, 2007

By	calvinnme "Texan refugee" (Fredericksburg, Va) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

All of the effects in this book are interesting, and each is laid out in an easy to read fashion. First shown for each effect is a list of files you will need from the CD laid out in a box entitled "MEDIA". Next is a table with complexity, skill level, and materials labeling the rows. Within the row, what applies to this effect is labeled in bold print. Next is a box labeled "What You'll Do". This is a broad overview of the steps you will take to create the effect. This is followed by a few paragraphs of introduction that talk about the effect. The rest of the pages on each particular effect go into details on each step in the "What You'll Do" box. All the instructions are heavily illustrated with screenshots of the application so you can easily follow along. The final entry for each effect involves an image that shows what your film should look like if you performed the steps correctly. The effects mentioned are quite interesting and are as follows, with a chapter dedicated to each one:

Chapter 1. The See-Through Title Effect - The film is given a title, and you can see a scaled version of the underlying film coloring the title.
Chapter 2. The Retro Title Effect - Gives the opening and closing titles a 60's look.
Chapter 3. The Star Wars Opening Sequence Effect - Gives opening credits that scroll like they did in Star Wars.
Chapter 4. The Passing of Time Effect - Emulate the passing in time by deleting frames and using "dissolves".
Chapter 5. The Fast Times Effect - Shows the world rushing by your subject as he or she moves in normal time, thereby communicating a world of information about the character and story.
Chapter 6. The Reverse Action Effect - Film motion goes in reverse.
Chapter 7. The Pencil Sketch Effect - Your film looks like it was sketched with a pencil, like Photoshop.
Chapter 8. The Watercolor Painting Effect - Make the film appear as painted by watercolor, like Photoshop.
Chapter 9. The Faded Film Effect - Use dust, scratches, and faded color to make your film look old.
Chapter 10. The Nightly News Effect - Adds titles, graphics, and logos to make your film look like a newscast.
Chapter 11. The "24" Effect - The picture-in-picture effect popular on the show "24".
Chapter 12. The Beam Me Up Effect - Simulates the transporter effect popular on Star Trek.
Chapter 13. The Night Vision Effect - Makes your film look like it's being viewed through night-vision goggles.
Chapter 14. The Hidden Identity Effect - "Pixelizes" certain areas on the screen to hide the identities of people as is done on crime shows.
Chapter 15. The Bleeping Effect - A pure sound effect that puts a bleeping sound where speech should be.
Chapter 16. The Enchanted Elf Effect - Shows you how to shrink and add color to someone and place them in a video so they appear to be an elf of some kind.
Chapter 17. The Friendly Ghost Effect - Change opacity and other features to give a character the appearance of a ghost.
Chapter 18. The Multiple You Effect - Placing multiples of the same individual in the same frame so that they can interact with one another in a natural fashion.
Chapter 19. The Super Hero Effect - Gives a character in your film the appearance of flying around like Superman.
Chapter 20. The Around the World Effect - How to use Premiere Elements to brighten your traveller and help match the actor to the background clip. Useful if the sun is shining from the west in your background travel clip but the narrator has the sun coming from the opposite direction.

This is a very easy to follow book that deals not only with just artistic effects, but common problems a filmmaker might run across. In fact, by learning how to execute these effects, you'll learn skills that will translate well into your other editing projects that have no apparent special effects purpose to them. This is because while these effects projects take advantage of color and sound techniques for "slight of hand" effects, they utilize the same techniques that you would use to correct the colors in an oversaturated video clip, or to get the colors to match in two clips that were shot under different lighting conditions. By following the instructions in this book, you'll learn to think about timing, splitting clips, matching audio to video, syncing clips, and other concepts that until now you might not have given much thought to. These projects will teach you about Premiere Elements in a way that no other book can while having a good bit of fun along the way. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in using Adobe Premiere Elements for film editing.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Premiere Elements 3 Guide, February 13, 2007

By	Richard Eltzroth (Cotopaxi, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Adobe should hire this guy to write their User Guides. After reading their Guide that came with Premiere Elements as well as buying Adobe's "Classroom in a Book", I still couldn't do much. I especially wanted to mimic the Star Wars rolling and receding script at the beginning of my videos. Well this Hollywood Special Effects book was just what I needed. And it appears to have many more good ideas that I haven't even gotten to yet.

What's really good is how thorough and easy to follow the instructions are.

The earlier reviewers here on Amazon really had it right when they all gave 5 stars to this book.

Check it out; you won't be disappointed.
Update 3-23-07: The website for the author, Carl Plumer, listed in the front of the book is currently out of commission. Too bad. I had some questions for him.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First rate, February 14, 2007

By	Mr. Mike (Carlsbad, CA) - See all my reviews

Beyond helping with the features of the software, the examples in this book provide interesting and meaningful applications of video editing...rolling titles, time-elapse sequences, etc. The book is very well written and illustrated. It doesn't take the place of a true user manual that explains every feature of a software product - it doesn't try to do that. Instead, it answers the question, "Okay, what kinds of things can I do with video editing?". I'm very glad I found this book.