How to add special effects to a short film?

Filmmaking and after effects?

• I'm shooting a short film for my film class in a few weeks, but I'm not quite sure how to handle the footage after. Should I add the finished cut into after effects, then add the FX, letterbox, color correction etc. for the whole thing? Or should I add the effects to each clip and then put it together in a video editing software? Also, what rendering format gives the best quality?

• Answer:

  People choose to do this in different ways depending on how much work they need to do in their VFX/compositing application. If you're just adding visual effects to a few shots, then you can do all of your assembly work in the video editor and then just send individual shots over to the VFX software. In the case of Premiere Pro and After Effects, this is often done with Dynamic Link. In this case, your final export would be out of Premiere Pro. But if you're coloring or otherwise manipulating an entire movie in After Effects, then it makes sense to finalize the edit in Premiere Pro and then bring the whole movie over into After Effects. In this case, your final export would be out of After Effects. There's no one right way to organize this kind of work, and you'll find yourself working both ways depending on what exactly you're doing. See this page for details of working between Premiere Pro and After Effects: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WSB865D05C-3793-4682-B26E-5B25FAF45432.html#WS4648B7F7-2D89-4765-BC8A-271D9A7574A3a