This tutorial series is designed for Premiere Editors to get a quick look at the important, fundamental differences in Avid Media Composer, so they can get up to speed editing quickly!

When I sat down to start working on this tutorial series, it was hard to narrow down five specific…..thoughts that I wanted to cover for Premiere Editors who need to jump into Media Composer quickly, but Effects and Titling was definitely one of them.  In most NLE’s, every clip has certain “clip-based parameters” attached to them that you don’t need to apply an effect to alter them (Scale, Position, Rotation, etc).  That’s not the case in Media Composer.  We need to utilize an effect, and the 3D Warp tool is the one we go back to over and over again.  One thing that I should I point out, that’s very important to understand for new editors to Media Composer is that you cannot stack effects in your Media Composer the way you would in Premiere.  There are some limitations, and if you’re looking to do higher end effects work in your timelines, you can look into some awesome third party effects packages from companies like Boris FX, who now have Boris Continuum Complete, Mocha from Imagineer Systems and Genarts Sapphire all under one roof!  From effects, we move onto titling, and this is one place where Media Composer really shines.  With your Media Composer subscription you have access to three title tools.  That’s right, three.  You have the standard Title tool for all your static 2D titles.  Then to take things to the next level, you have the Marquee Title tool that will let you do standard, 2D titles, as well as 3D animated titles as well.  Now, many people ask why Media Composer has two title tools.  Well, years (and years) ago, the Marquee Title Tool was a specialized tool that required it’s own dedicated hardware to run.  Now, with the power of today’s computers, it can easily be run on most of the standard, supported Media Composer PC’s, so who am I to complain!  Last, we have NewBlueFX’s Titler Pro, which many people wonder why we have access to this tool.  The reason being is that as of right now, both the Standard and Marquee Title Tool are not supported in larger than HD projects, so, the team at Avid has decided to team up with NewBlueFX to bring you a titler that can handle all your larger than HD projects, until both title tools are ready for larger than HD projects.  Also, I should point out that if you want to get yourself up to speed with Titler Pro, I’ve done a great tutorial series for Avid Blogs on getting you up and running lightning quick!