Photo essay videos - best software to use?

[dantes]

What is the best software to use for making photo essays?

Similar to these:
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/picnic-gangster

Im guessing these were made in Final Cut?

Also, if you havent watched the In Motion videos, they are incredible.

 

[JohnnyT]

I would say After Effects because this is not a resolution dependant software. Which means in english that if you put a 4000 pixels picture inside Final Cut, you'll definitely degrade your picture to a maximum of 2000 pixels, in a case you've made the choice in a 2K project, which I sincerely doubt.

Yes you can do it in FCP, but you'll get something not as good.

Avid Media Composer as a cool feature for the pictures also... but not like AE

The only problem with After Effects is that this is NOT a real time software = you need to render to see it. But, when you're used to it, this is not a real problem.

But every soft has limits, the resolution independant I've talked is not entirely true in AE, you'll be limited to the power of your system

 

[dantes]

Thanks JohnnyT -

I guess I should also say, what would be the simplest/quickest software to use?

 

[JohnnyT]

Hehehe... My geek side is sometime too strong ... I'm a consultant in Post-production...

To be frank, I'll go with Adobe Premiere Pro... For these kind of things, it's a way much better software than FCP, very simple FCP like, you drag, drop, push few buttons and press play and usually works

If you've worked with adobe products before, you'll find everything you need.

Hope this help

 

[bolohead]

You could also do it in Adobe Lightroom. Might have a few less bells and maybe one less whistle, but would be nice. IMHO, if you are just going to make a few of these, Lightroom would be a much better investment than one of the full blown video production applications as you can use it for editing and archiving photos as well. You could also use the software that is already on your computer such as Windows Movie Maker on PC or iMovie on Mac.

 

[kutting]

There are a series of blog posts on MIM that explains how they're made:

http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2007/10/magnum_in_motion_the_philosophy_behind_the_story.html

http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2007/10/magnum_in_motion_the_importance_of_sound.html

http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2007/10/magnum_in_motion_getting_the_story_online.html

 

[dantes]

Thanks so much everyone -- !

From the links above (thank you kutting!) it looks like Final Cut it is ---

Ill see what iMovie can do before jumping to Final Cut. I tried Lightroom's slideshow, but there arent enough options with it... good for simple slideshows with music though.

Thanks again