I began by adding a colour matte and then adding a title in front of this. Adding colour mattes was touched upon in a previous blog post, however to recap it can be found in File, New and Colour Matte. Shown Below.
There are two ways in which you can add a title over a colour matte. The first is to use a similar method in terms of File, New and Title. These options can also be seen above. The second way to add a title is to use the Title and then Title, New Title and for the beginning Default Still. I will be looking at the other two options later. The next two options are the exact same regardless as to which path you take above. As the title sits on the timeline you need to chose the video settings in terms of the width and height and timebase. As a default these are the same as the settings which we changed when the project and sequence was first created and hence these should be left as they are. This dialog box can be seen below.
The next stage from here is to actually add some text. A larger dialog box appears which is home to all of the settings related to text. This can be seen below.
Lets start by looking down the left hand side of the screen. This shows that the title tool can be used for other aspects as well as text. The two options at the top are very similar to those which can be found in both Photoshop and Illustrator, these are the selection tool and the rotation tool. Following on from this are the text tools. The top left hand corner is the basic horizontal type tool while next to this is the vertical type tool. You then have the area type tool and the vertical area type tool followed by the standard path tool and the vertical path tool. these are all very similar to those which I have previously used in Photoshop and Illustrator and hence take little explaining.
Following on from the type tool options come the pen tool options. This was a tool which I used a lot in Illustrator. The simple fountain pen icon is the basic pen tool which this icon with the - is known as the Delete Anchor Point Tool, this deletes the line between two points. The opposite to this is the Add Anchor Point Tool followed finally by the Convert Anchor Point Tool.
The next options in this tool bar are shapes. Like the pen tool these can most commonly be found in Illustrator and I was hence quite surprised to find these in Premiere. These are quite simple shapes but could come in handy. The final three options in this bar relate to the positioning of the elements on the screen. Align works when there is more than one element on the screen. This is probably not something which I will need to use as I aim to keep the text elements simple like in a DVD Trailer. To try this tool out I created a piece of text and then a shape. I used the Selection Tool to select both items and then the align tools became available. I then used the horizontal left alignment to position the shape to the left of the text. This can be seen below.
The next set of icons are for the Center options. These can be used on many or a single object. The first option is the center the text horizontally the the second is to center the text vertically. To make the text dead center you can use both icons. You can firstly center the text horizontally and then vertically.
The final tool in this tool bar is the distribute tool. This again works by changing the positioning of multiply elements on the screen. This can be seen in the random shapes I added below.
So now that I have looked at the options down the left hand side of the screen I am going to look further into the type options. I am going to start by looking at the top tool bar when the type is selected. This can be seen below.
This gives the basic type options. Starting from the left the first three options are to create a new title and lose what you have already created, basically start over. Roll and Crawl options, this shows that even if you chose a stationary title you can go back and change your mind. Roll and Crawl titles will be discussed later. The final option is to select templates. From this point there is then a variety of options for the font style, bold, italic and underline. The font size and kerning. Remembering from previously that the kerning of text involves normally two letters. Although in this case the kerning seems to adjust the spacing between whatever has been selected. The next option is leading. This adjusts the space between two lines of text. This will be handy for my as I am more than likely going to need to spread my title across two lines. The three lines icons are very common on Microsoft software and adjust the positioning of the title on the page, these options are for left, centre or right.
Tab stops are something completely new to me however this is the next icon in the tool bar. I undertook some research to find out what these tab stops are and what they do. This can be seen below: Sourced: http://helpx.adobe.com/en/premiere-pro/using/creating-formatting-text-titles.html - Accessed: 01/04/2014
'Create tab stops in titles
You can apply tabs in a text box in much the same way as you would in a word-processing program. Tabs are especially useful in creating professional-looking rolling credits. You can set multiple tabs within a text box and press the Tab key to move the cursor to the next available tab stop. You can specify a different justification option at each tab stop.
Note: Tabs work exclusively to align the characters within text objects. To align entire text or graphic objects, use the Align command.
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.- In the Tab Stops dialog box, drag the tab up, down, or off the tab ruler.'
The final icon in this tool bar relates to where the title is situated in the video. Although normally you would set the play head to the position in the video you want to add the title if you were to change your mind or want to experiment with the title on different backgrounds this is how you would do it. You simply slide the time code either left or right to move back or forward through the clip.
All of the above are the basic type tool options. The side bar along the right hand side of the screen are the title properties. These are split into six different categories, these are Properties, Transform, Fill, Strokes, Shadow and Background. These are probably the most important aspect in relation to title as this is where I can set the fine details to enhance the titles appearance. At this point it is worth noting that I have been using the tools I have been explaining in order to make a trial run of my DVD title. I have so far used the tools set along the top of the dialog box which I previously mentioned. My trail title so far can be seen below. Showing this now will indicate just what an influence these title properties have on the overall look of the title.
The transform icon in the properties menu looks at mainly the size and positioning of the title. This aspect is very similar to in the top tool bar however it allows you to go into more detail. This is all self explanatory and can be seen in the below screenshot.
As you can see the next option is Properties. This section looks in more detail at the font in terms of actual font, font size, kerning, tracking, leading, aspect, underlining, slant and capitals. This can all be seen in the below screenshot. I decided to change the leading, underlining features and slant. This can be seen below.
The next option is Fill. This is the first chance Premiere gives you to change the colour of the type. This really surprised me as I personally feel the type colour is really important. Within this fill section there are three main options. These are the type of fill, whether that be solid, gradient, Bevel, Eliminate or Ghost. The fill colour and then the opacity of the fill. I decided to use the Bevel fill. The exact settings I looked at can be seen below.
When looking at this and comparing it to the way I would like my titles to work I think I would be better off having a white colour matte as this gives me more scope to use pink in the title which works best with my colour scheme which I have used throughout. The image below shows my trial title using the effects shown in the above screenshot.
The next tab in the title properties section is Strokes. This aspect allows you to add either an inner or outer stroke. I personally only really like the outer stroke and hence this is the area which I have been experimenting with. From this I was then able to set the type of stroke, the size of the stroke, the fill type and colour, opacity and finally then either add a sheen or texture. The screenshot below shows the settings I changed. Ideally I wanted a white stroke however this just didn't work well and hence I have used a black stroke for the purpose of this however when I come to create my DVD title I will need to look into ways that I could make this work. As I have mentioned above I think my best option is going to be to change the colour of the colour matte.
Next is the option to add a shadow. This has fewer options that most of the other title properties however some of the editable shadow options include Colour, Opacity, Angle, Distance and Size. The screenshot below shows the editable options for the shadow and then finally my trial title with this added.
The final option in the title properties section is Background. Not surprisingly this allows you to add a background to your text. I personally see little point in this option as you already have the colour matte option or have selected the scene you want the title to run in front of and hence I am not sure why you would want to then change this. The background option includes the fill type, colour and opacity. I feel this option would be improved if you were able to set the size of the background so that you could add a small background around the text rather than set the colour of the whole screen. I don't think I will be using this setting in my final DVD trailer and hence I have not added this to my trial. The screenshot below does however show the editable options which the background has.
As I mentioned above there are another two default title options, these are Default Roll and Default Crawl. These give settings over how the title moves across the screen. So what is the difference between roll and crawl? The Default Roll allows the title to roll across the screen from top to bottom. The dialog box below allows you to edit the way the roll works.
From experimenting with the title options I now feel a lot more comfortable about adding text to my DVD trailer. I feel that I will now be able to add some effects to make the title stand out better and have also learnt that the title settings allow you to draw shapes using the pen tool or use the default shapes already saved.
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