As a filmmaker and storyteller, I strive to bring my ideas to the screen in a way that’s impactful and relatable to the viewer. Last year, I created a film with Cinecom exploring what it’s like to see the world through a character’s point of view. I enjoyed using this perspective so much that I decided I wanted to do it again. So, I started a side project and partnered with Adobe to create a sci-fi short film called ROUTINE, which takes audiences on a sensory experience of a daily routine through the eyes of the main character. I was able to shoot and edit the film in a couple of weeks and I played around with features and effects in the Creative Cloud apps to enhance the project. Using integrated workflows with Premiere Pro, Audition and After Effects helped me design how I wanted the film to look and sound. A few tools that were especially useful during the editing process were the Freeform Project Panel and Essential Sound Panel in Premiere Pro, Audition, as well as the 3D Camera Tracker in After Effects.

Piecing Together The Story

Premiere Pro was the backbone for my edit and organization was key. I had 47 shots to choose from for a three-minute film and I needed to arrange the clips so that I could easily pick and choose which takes I wanted to use. The Freeform Project Panel in Premiere acted as a kind of post-production storyboard where I laid everything out. It was helpful to group the same shots but different takes together and I labeled clips if they needed to be re-shot or hid shots I didn’t want to use. Once the takes were organized, I dragged the shots I liked from the Freeform Panel and arranged them on the timeline.

Designing The Right Sound

I wasn’t able to record any sound while shooting due to the production equipment and noise on set. Audition as well as the Essential Sound Panel in Premiere Pro were live-saving tools. In order to get crisp sounds in the final product, I designed all the sound effects from scratch, recording my own sounds and pulling in stock audio footage in Audition. I could easily move my audio between Audition and Premiere Pro without any extra rendering, one benefit to working with integrated workflows in Adobe Creative Cloud. The most important thing to me was making sure the sound had the right tone to fit with the shots. In Premiere Pro, I laid out the audio on my timeline and used the Essential Sound Panel to add Reverb to the audio and make sure the tone matched perfectly with the video footage.

Enhancing Technique With Visual Effects

I love to use visual effects in my projects and one feature I had fun with was the 3D Camera Tracker in After Effects, which I used to create the floating knife and fork scene. This feature analyzes a shot and calculates the movements of the shot to add a virtual 3D camera that mimics the movements of the real camera. I created a new layer and masked the objects I wanted to use, in this case the knife and fork, and moved the objects to the 3D layer and placed them in position on the screen. To get a floating effect, I animated the position property and added motion blur. This created the effect that you can see on screen.

Partnering With Adobe

ROUTINE was an exciting project to work on and a great example of how you can utilize technology to create the look you want in a limited amount of time. Premiere Pro, Audition, and After Effects gave me innovative tools at my fingertips to bring the story to life. Without Adobe’s partnership and the integrated workflow Creative Cloud provides, I wouldn’t have had all the necessary resources to complete the project. My partnership with Adobe allows me to work on more creative projects. Sometimes we fall quickly into a “routine” with our work and it’s good to get external input to help take our creativity to the next level. I’m grateful that I have had the chance to work with Adobe and hopefully together we can inspire other editors to pursue their creative ideas on screen.

Once the film was completed, Adobe and I created a series of video tutorials to take viewers step by step through some of the Creative Cloud features I used to edit the film. When I first started out as an editor, one of the most useful tools was watching online tutorials to learn different techniques that I could apply to my own projects. I hope these tutorials will be just as useful for other editors. The Creative Cloud YouTube channel has many more video tutorials for all of the apps, so if you’re looking to learn more tips, I highly recommend you check out their page.