One Last Tip: Third-Party Help for Quick and Easy Titles

Here's a little third-party plug I have to give you. For years I watched television and tried to re-create some of the title segments and stingers used by my favorite programs on Fox and ESPN. It used to take me forever, and, of course, they never came out as well. Then I came across a product that raises the standard of your projects to a new level. If you don't have a great deal of time, talent, or money to hire 3D animators, there's one product you must buy. It has made a world of difference in my productions in a short time. This product is Jump Backs by Digital Juice, Inc. These guys have produced a series of professional-quality animations to be used as backgrounds. They come in any format, from JPEG sequences or QuickTime movies that you can import to complete animations in virtually any videotape format. Each CD or tape contains intricate animations that are ready to be used royalty-free. Just import or digitize the desired animation into Premiere (or any Non-Linear Editing [NLE] system) and edit it into your sequence as you would any other media clip.

To create professional title sequences, simply edit your text over these animations, and you're done. In just a few minutes, you can create title segments that compete with the ones you see on television (see Figure 9.19). The best part is that you can simply tweak the animation's hue by adding a Color Balance video effect (from the Image Control folder), adjust a few sliders, and you've got practically an entirely different background. Quick. Professional. Easy. I highly recommend looking into adding this to your collection of must-haves. Check it out at www.digitaljuice.com.

Figure 9.19. Create professional titles in seconds by layering text over animated backgrounds from the Jump Backs series produced by Digital Juice, Inc.