How do you set up a TIME-LAPSE movie "before" putting into CS5 ??

[George D.]

I know I asked a similar question about Time-Lapse previously, but since then other things have occurred and come to my attention.

Is there a way to put together a time-lapse sequence shot with a DSLR (comprised of many stills) into a movie at 30fps, BEFORE putting it into the Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 timeline?

QuickTime does NOT work because the images I need to use are TIFFs of much too high a quality so they will cut in with R3D footage. Too big for QT to handle. I know, I've tried.

**I know I can put the stills into CS5 as a series of shots lasting 1/30sec each to make a sequence, but that does not allow me to control the finished sequence "as a whole" for further altering like duration or other effects. Otherwise, I would have to make alterations one frame at a time, which is ridiculously time prohibitive and not precise.

I'm using a Windows7 PC, and a Nikon D2X DSLR camera and shooting in RAW originally.

Any advise and help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all of you who have been trying to help me. Remember, "patience is a virtue", especially with the technologically challenged......

PS - If I have to get AE to accomplish this, what version should I buy? I doubt if I can afford it though.

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[Drew Fulton]

If you don't have After Effects and Quicktime 7 Pro won't handle the Tiffs, my suggestion would be to create a sequence in Premiere and drop your stills in at 1/30th of a second like you mentioned. You can then treat that sequence as a single clip and nest it into your other sequences. I think you can then use effects and everything just like you could if it was a true clip. If not, then render that one sequence out and then import the rendered version.

I haven't done this before, but that is where I would start if I didn't have access to After Effects and Quicktime 7 Pro couldn't handle the throughput. The last idea is that if you have Photoshop Extended you might be able to use it's timeline feature but I have no idea if that would be useful or not. I've done it once but was using JPEGs so the data wasn't quite as monstrous.

 

[Brad Allen]

Hi George - I think I might have a solution for you.

If you have the files as TIFF's and they are numbered in order then try this. We are going to import the Tiff's as an image sequence.

Go to File > Import (or double click on a blank spot in the project panel)

Navigate to your folder of TIFF's.

Click on the 1st image in your timelapse.

Then select the "Numbered Stills" Checkbox

Click Import

Depending on your settings, it may not bring the timelapse in at 30fps - that's easily fixed though. Right click the timelapse sequence > modify > interpret footage.

In the dialogue box that pops up, under the frame rate settings, select "Assume this frame rate:" and punch in 30. (This will tell Premiere to read the footage as though it is 30fps footage)

Click ok and edit away

 

[Christopher Barrett]

I do this quite a bit and it's a piece of cake. It's essential to have the images named sequentially, and this will not be an issue if they retain the original camera filenames. I start a new sequence in Premier, make sure that my "Still Image Duration" is set to 1 frame in the prefs. Then I import the folder of images into the project bin. Then I just drop the whole folder on the timeline.

Bamm.

Done.

From there you can either export the media as a self contained movie or drop the sequence into your project.

Cheers,
CB

On a side note... I use Capture 1 Pro on the Raws. I setup a crop (Usually 16x9) and make whatever adjustments I want to the first image and then you can copy those settings (with crop) and apply them to all the images at once. I then set my output recipe to match the dimensions of the project and have C1Pro output the whole batch of them. The resulting files are what I drop into Premier for the TL.


Brad's method looks good too, I'll have to try that.

 

[George D.]

Thanks to you all for the help.

I have done exactly what you have suggested, and have succeeded in getting them into the timeline as a movie. And, they are all sequentially numbered. The problem is, it just will not play smoothly. It skips and jumps or doesn't play at all. And, I've even reduced the playback resolution to 1/16 and it does no good.

Each image is 16MB and maybe that's where the problem is. Maybe I also need to upgrade my CS5 to CS5.5

I'll just keep trying.

Thanks again.

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[Drew Fulton]

Is it not playing smoothly in the preview monitor or when you render it out? My guess is that it is having to deal with a ton of data (16mb * 30 fps). Once you render out, I bet it will play. You could use smaller files as proxies and then just use the full res files when you are ready for your final render.

 

[George D.]

Is it not playing smoothly in the preview monitor or when you render it out? My guess is that it is having to deal with a ton of data (16mb * 30 fps). Once you render out, I bet it will play. You could use smaller files as proxies and then just use the full res files when you are ready for your final render.

I hate to ask this, because you'll all think I'm pretty stupid. But, you have to understand, I am still learning all of this, and it can be quite overwhelming at times.

So, just exactly how do I "render out" a shot?

Thanks.

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[Brad Allen]

Hi George,

What you are probably after is Pre-Rendering. If you were to just render out something, that usually implies that you are exporting a video out of Premiere into some other format.

Pre-Rendering will tell premiere to make a rendered version inside of premiere that you can watch back. Just go to sequence > Render Work Area.

You should see the yellow bar slowly transforming into a green bar as it works through all the frames. Once that is complete, you should be able to play back the sequence without any problems.