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As of my freshman year, I will be posting content centered around a certain topic. You can expect my blog posts to feature well-written sentences.
Brady Bryan
Recently, I had to create three different tutorials on certain tools in Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro. I chose to make a tutorial on the razor tool from Premiere Pro, the free transform tool from Photoshop, and the gradient tool from Photoshop as well. Each tutorial had to be 30 seconds long. To create each tutorial, I had to find some royalty-free soundtracks to use in the video. I just chose three upbeat/funky tracks from Bensound.com. Next, I had to write a script for each tutorial. However, instead of creating all three at the same time, I wrote it one-by-one, and would move on to the next script once the entire video was done. Once the script was done, I opened up a stopwatch window to see how long the script was, and if I would be able to do it all in under 30 seconds. Fortunately, all of them were less than 30 seconds. I would then spend lunch recording the script with two to three second intervals between each sentence using a provided microphone. In the event that I mess up while recording a certain line, I continued the recording and simply re-recorded the line as I would be able to edit it in Premiere Pro. I also recorded ten seconds of silence at the beginning in case I had to replace any out-of-place background noise. For the first script (the razor tool), I used Adobe Audition to raise the volume of the recording since I spoke too quietly. Once the audio was recorded, I opened OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) on the left monitor and recorded my actions in Premiere Pro on the right monitor. I had the audio playing in the background so I could sync up the actions to the best of my abilities. After that was done, I simply brought all of the files into Premiere Pro and began editing. I trimmed the audio so it wouldn't contain any silent parts, and also so the audio wouldn't last longer than 30 seconds. This called for really-tight trimming in most cases. For the action recordings, I had to split some of the clips and increase the speed of them so they could fit under the 30-second mark. After everything was done, I added transitions to the clips to make it more appealing. I tried to used different types of transitions across each tutorial, but the "crossfade" transition was the main placeholder. The same process was used for the other tutorials as well. I am very proud of what I accomplished. I think that I did a great job finding transitions that weren't too "over-the-top," but would also "wow" the audience. The title screens were also a great accomplishment of mine since they were colorful and didn't take long to create. Most of the students in my class shied away from doing a solo project as I had predicted, but I honestly though that this wasn't hard at all. It just took time and devotion. It still believe that I made the right decision, and hopefully my classmates will feel the same way. Recap:
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Brady Bryan
What good would a video editing program be if you weren't able to manipulate the scale, opacity, or position of a video? Rest assured, it won't be of much use. Luckily, Adobe's Premiere Pro allows you to do this, and a little more. What's more is that those options are located in one single window. Y'know, for easy access. This is one of the basic settings in Premiere Pro, so it is crucial that one learns how to do this. The effects control panel is located in the upper left corner of the application (the source window). It is the tab next to the "Source" tab (the second one). If you don't see any settings, you will have to select a video clip in your "Timeline" window. You will be greeted with several settings with blue numbers next to them. This means that you can edit the numbers, thus editing that option. Most, if not, all of the settings should look familiar such as "Rotation," "Scale," and "Opacity." Those are self-explanatory, but editing them is a little different. Increase the value in "Rotation" to make the clip turn clockwise, and vice versa to turn it counter-clockwise. Increase the value in "Scale" to increase the size, and vice versa to decrease the size. There will be two different numerical values. The one on the left changes the length, and the one on the right changes the width. The "Uniform Scale" option will be activated by default, so increasing one value will increase the other at the same time so the original size is retained. Decrease the opacity to make the video clip more transparent. You can also change the blend mode of the clip as if it were in Photoshop or Illustrator to make it appear differently. You can increase or decrease the speed of the clip by altering the value accordingly. The "Anti-Flicker filter" option decreases the flicker of an object that comes into frame, and increasing the value will decrease the unsightly effect. As previously stated, this is one of the most basic techniques in Premiere Pro, and will easily become one of the most used windows as you continue to use Premiere Pro. For instance, say that you screen-captured some gameplay, but the recording captured a little extra space. Naturally, you'd want to get rid of that. To fix this, simply open the recording in Premiere Pro, and adjust the position and scaling of the clip to the best of your ability. It is recommended that you make a note of certain presets that will display certain clips properly so you won't have to keep experimenting on the same clip to find the best display settings. Recap:
Brady Bryan
Disclaimer: This is going to be a hard blog to read due to all of the inescapable hype, I understand. Please bear with me. "What's Fortnite?" you (hopefully) may be asking yourself. Well my friend, Fortnite is a third-person multiplayer battle royale game that has taken literally everything by storm (this pun will make sense later). You can't leave your house without hearing passersby mention Fortnite to one another, sparking one of the world's most interesting conversations about how each person won a battle royale match, effectively boosting their confidence tenfold. Even if you try staying home- actually, scratch that - especially if you try to stay home, you will find hundreds of thousands of people talking about Fortnite left, right, and center. At school, at work, in public, at home, you'll never escape the storm of Fortnite players. "That's the second time you've made that pun, what gives?" Well, it ties into the objective of the game. You are pitted against 99 other players in a Hunger Games-esque style battle where each player has to search for weapons and tools, using only the best that you can find. Each weapon is ranked from common, all the way to legendary. You can find a myriad of weapons ranging from crossbows to assault rifles, from C4s to different types of grenades and traps. Don't think for a second that you have all the time in the world to find only the best of the best, as the space in which you are allowed to move in (an entire island with different areas) is shrinking due to (you guessed it!) a storm. Those that are caught inside the storm gradually take damage until they either make it inside the safe zone or die. You can also use your first source of damage output (your pickaxe) to gather materials from natural resources such as wood from trees and metal and bricks from buildings. You can use these to build bases to protect yourself from your enemies, especially when there are only a select few people left alive and the safe zone is considerably small. You can choose to play in squads of four, duos, or solo. Fortnite has a number of emotes that give the game a hip, modern vibe. Fortnite features the "Backpack Kid" dance, the "Dab," and "the Carlton." Of course, there's the famous dance emote taken from a Scrubs episode (skip to 0:40). Here is a YouTube video that contains all of the Fortnite emotes and their origins. Now you might be thinking "Wow, this game has a lot! I bet that it costs around $60 though..." Well, when I tell you that the game is free, you'll be able to pick your jaw up off the floor when I tell you that you'll have to buy every cosmetic with real money. If you want the emotes previously listed, you'll have to get your wallet ready. Unless, of course, you actually purchase the game for $60, in which you'll get the battle pass, which essentially unlocks everything. It's pretty much baiting you to buy the battle pass so you can deck out your character with cool emotes and skins... and it works too well! There are so many reasons why the darn game is so popular, and borderline impossible to ignore, but that will get covered at another time, since this blog is already long enough, and Fortnite is popular enough to have multiple blogs covering its many aspects. Recap:
Brady Bryan
How does one start any sort of discussion about the "magnum opus" that is Nintendo's beat-em-up party game franchise that has one of the largest fan bases in gaming? Of course, I'm referring to none other than the Super Smash Bros. franchise (or SSB for short). Recently, Nintendo released a Nintendo Direct that showcased all of the upcoming video games and updates that are set to launch in the near future. At every Direct, Super Smash fans always expect some sort of announcement for the next installment of the series, but often get disappointed when Nintendo doesn't meet their expectations. Unfortunately, this has been true for the past Directs. That is, until on Thursday March 8th, 2018, Nintendo surprised everyone at the end of their direct with the announcement of another Smash game. Every YouTuber that orients their channel around the franchise was absolutely floored when they saw this. What's more is that the game was set to launch this year. This is especially interesting because since most were expecting the next install to come out next year instead of sooner. That being said, this raises the question that most want an answer to: Will it be a port of Nintendo's latest Super Smash Bros. game (Super Smash Bros. 4), or will it be an entirely new installment? Of course, no one has a clear-cut answer, so I will do my best to answer the question. If you were to take a look at the official site, there's not a lot to look at other than the revamped logo (old logo), the scheduled release year (2018), and a few links that lead to the trailer, Facebook page, and Twitter page. However, something that is especially notable is the fact that Bandai Namco is not listed with the rest of the companies at the bottom of the page with Nintendo and HAL Laboratory. You could say that Bandai Namco had a role in Smash 4 (or Sm4sh) since the company allowed Pac-Man to be a playable character with numerous references to Bandai Namco titles hidden within Pac-Man's taunt. Since Bandai Namco is no longer listed with the other companies, the chances of the next game being a port is low since Namco is no longer part of the production. Another reason that the next Smash game won't be a port can be found directly in the trailer. The trailer goes like this: The male and female Inkling from Splatoon - another Nintendo title - battling one another until the female Inkling notices the large fiery Smash Ball in the sky. This essentially confirms that the Inklings will be a part of the next Smash game, potentially a playable character. Previously, they were only trophies in Sm4sh, and their clothes could be bought with money as DLC. Since they will be playable characters in the next Smash game, this means that there will not be a port. Ports are simply games from older generation consoles that have been brought to modern-day consoles, and don't feature new content. While the creator of Super Smash Bros., Masahiro Sakurai, is notorious for being unpredictable, the clues that we have been provided with tell us that we can expect a new Smash game. He managed to add Cloud Strife from the Final Fantasy series and Bayonetta from the Bayonetta series into Sm4sh, which no one saw coming. That being said, everyone can expect to be floored by the incoming news we will have surrounding the game. Recap:
Brady Bryan
When creating any sort of video (professional or casual), one must consider the quality and fluidity of their video. Will there be music? If so, how does it affect the video? Will the video have smooth transitions? Most videos nowadays, albeit short, are jam-packed with many transition cuts to lead into a relating image or video, and are often paired with music that is synced with each transition. These videos are referred to as edits, and are very well-crafted. Most video-editing programs (usually browser based) lack the feature of video transitions. This is not the case with Premiere Pro. In fact, it is very easy to add video transitions to a video. To access the video transitions, navigate to the "Effects" tab in the bottom-left window (the window where your imported videos are located by default). Here is where all the effects are located, not just for transitions, but in general. After that, click the drop-down arrow beside the "Video Transitions" group. Inside this group are sub-folders that contain specific transition slides such as "Dissolve, Slide," and "Wipe." As one can imagine, each sub-folder is specific to it's own specialty, which is pretty self-evident. In order to apply a certain transition to your video, simply click and drag the transition from the "Effects" tab to the timeline, more specifically the beginning or end of a clip. If done correctly. you will see a transparent yellow rectangle with the name of your transition in front of your clip on the timeline. If you want to incorporate a transition into the middle of a clip, you must use the razor to divide the clip right where you want the transition to go, and go from there, as most transitions are unable to be placed right in the middle of a clip. If you want to alter the speed/duration of the transition, simply hover over the edge of the transition until you get a red fork-shaped icon and drag towards or away the opposing side of the rectangle to increase or decrease the duration, as well as the speed. You can also set certain transitions as default. This makes it so you can simply right-click on the edge of a clip and select "Apply Default Transition" to apply it. By default (how many times have I said default?), the transition will be cross dissolve, which is a simple "fade to next scene" transition. Simple right? As previously stated, it is easy to include transitions in your video in Premiere Pro, as opposed to other programs, which make things a little more complicated than necessary due to many individual settings. Not only that, but it is admittedly fun to toy around with each transition just to get a feel for utilizing transitions effectively. Most of the transitions are self-explanatory, so using them won't be a chore. Using these correctly can help you create an interesting, enticing video. so get to it! Recap:
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AuthorBrady Bryan is quite familiar with blogs since he had to frequently post on his blog in 6th grade. Although its been a long time since then, he still knows what a proper blog should look like. Archives
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