The following are notes about establishing an ongoing WIP, work-in-progress, reel. You can also call it an WIP animatic. It doesn’t really matter. The important differentiation is that sometimes, an animatic is considered a pre-production draft. You think you should make one and then, once production starts, you put it aside. But, you shouldn’t! With a WIP reel / animatic, as you press forward, you will consistently update the animatic as iterative versions, when you insert various drafts of animation, from pencil tests to tie-downs to polished sequences. Eventually, your WIP reel / animatic will be updated to the point of a finished film.
As part of a WIP reel / animatic, you should add a timecode burn. This will add a kind of clock to the work. You will want to show your work, on a weekly basis. When others review the material, and notice details and would like to share ideas about sections, they will be able refer to points in the timecode.
To utilize your project, you can download a template Premiere Project, with SMPTE reference tones, title options, and timecode, here.
Utilizing Adobe Premiere
Establish a Transparent Video for the Timecode to attach to.
First, be sure the Project Window is active. Click on it. The panel should then highlight with a blue-line border around it. Referring to the Main Menu, go to File > New > Transparent Video.
Then, back to the the Transparent Video Window, New Transparent Video Option, choose:
- Video Settings
- The same as the Sequence Settings. For example:
- Width: 1920
- Height: 1080
- Timebase: 24 fps
- Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)
- The same as the Sequence Settings. For example:
Then, back to the Project Window, click on the new Transparent Video and drag it to the uppermost track in the Timeline.
The Transparent Video should sit above a range of clips on tracks below it. Once you add the Timecode, the range will cover a series of clips.
To add the Timecode
To utilize your project, you can download a template Premiere Project, with SMPTE reference tones, title options, and timecode, here.
Referring to the Transparent Video in the Timeline, click on it to activate it.
Then, looking at the Effects Panel (Main Menu > Window > Effects, go to Video Effects > Video > Metadata & Timecode Burn-in.
From the panel, click to select the effect and then drag it onto the Transparent Video.
You will then need to fine-tune the settings.
From the Effects Controls Panel (Main Menu > Window > Effects Controls), choose the following:
- Format: SMPTE (which is time measured in “hours, minutes, seconds, and frames”
- Timecode source: Media
- Time display: 24
By the way, timecode is meant to start at one hour; that is 01:00:00:00. It’s a legacy from the way that tape is set up for broadcast. Even though it starts at 1 hour, the minutes, seconds, and frames are at 0:00. Therefore, your animatic / WIP reel begins at 0:00.
From the Timecode Effects Controls, you can also adjust the position of the text, change the size, font colour and so on.
Exporting your WIP reel / animatic
To utilize your project, you can download a template Premiere Project, with SMPTE reference tones, title options, and timecode, here.
For presentations in class, and when you post your work-in-progress on-line, you won’t need to export the video with colour bars and countdown leader. Therefore, either set in points or the work area bar to start at 5 seconds of black (right after the countdown).
At other times, the colour bars and reference tone are useful. You check the tone for colour, brightness, and contrast of the monitor or projector, and the audio levels for the sound in the screening space.
It is also possible to turn off the timecode. To do so, referring to the Timeline, and the layer with the transparent video clip, de-select the visibility of the layer. Alternatively, go to the Effects Controls, locate the Timecode effect and “toggle the effect off”.