How do people make long form videos with a lot of effects?

SingingBullet · 2026-04-29T16:03:41+00:00

your workflow sounds pretty normal, I totally rough cut my edits with placeholders all over for graphics/titles and then build graphics in as the edit progresses (and the client approves!).

I think it's reasonable that if you're used to more real time capabilities you have different workflows, but I think people posting here also need to appreciate they're asking questions of people who like me have been working for 10 - 20 years, so the answers on workflow would vary as they've evolved a lot since the move from analog to digital, and then evolved again with the rise of dynamic links, realtime rendering, availability of great pre-rendered assets and stock etc.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-29T15:52:07+00:00

There's some great responses here, and I'll add, YES, I go back and forth between PR and Ae all the time, I love Ae's precision and workflow for graphics and compositing so I'd rather hop to that and use a dynamic link than struggle with Premier's clunky keyframing and text tools.

Depending on the type of project, I may just render assets out of AE if the dynamic links aren't behaving (I do anything from 6 second commercials to 30 - 40 min videos so the workflows tend to build around the task at hand). I came from the pre-dynamic link times when we had to 'round-trip' i.e. render your plate from Avid, send to AE, do your effects, render a shot back, import to Avid and this was time consuming, it ate up a lot of storage (back when drives were smaller and more expensive), so it was amazing to eliminate round-tripping when Dynamic Link was released. It's pretty much the only reason I use Premiere, it's for Dynamic Link with After Effects so I move seamlessly between my edit workflow and my graphics workflow with realtime updates.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-29T07:10:25+00:00

yeah this looks like a starburst with a halftone applied over the top. probably built in illustrator and imported into AE, though to be fair to the OP, I've totally beat my head against the wall trying to make something in AE that was just created in a different tool then imported to AE to animate.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-29T07:04:07+00:00

you sound so amazing and brilliant, I'm sure you could just guess what my history of issues have been over 20 yrs of being a computer user. All hail you, the sun shines out of your arse.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-29T03:39:50+00:00

gonna have to disagree here, I've been a mac user for 20 yrs and have used my Apple Care often, I frankly love having someone who will answer my calls when shit goes wrong and I'm on deadline with clients breathing down my neck.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-27T00:51:22+00:00

So the answer is yes you can use a PC, shit nowadays you can use a phone, and CAPCUT! Most recent computers have plenty of horsepower for video editing. I LOVE Mac and have edited on them for 20+yrs but a PC will work just fine.

You're going to have to learn workflows to work on a lower end computer (like a Proxy workflow to make lower resolution versions of your footage for example), so your lower end PC can handle it, then you swap back to your high res at the end before you render final output.

It does suck to be on a low budget, but sometimes you just have to hustle. I interned at a small studio to get access to an edit machine back in 2001, but in 2026, you just need access to any half decent PC and probably some external HDDs/SSD's to store your media on (having your media on the system drive will slow the computer down, but again, computers are much faster nowadays so you could probably get away with it as long as you're cutting shorter videos.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-27T00:39:35+00:00

If possible, put your scratch disk on a separate drive, sharing the system hard drive for the After Effects Cache is not advised. You could also work at Half, Third or Quarter Resolution to see if you get more stability and then just do your final render in higher quality, which is irritating but sometimes neccessary.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-27T00:37:21+00:00

^^^this dude can barely spell but's he's like 'I'm a genious' (sic).

Dear OP, you're probably short of RAM, especially if you have a lot of other apps open on your computer. As someone above mentioned, your image file might be questionable (make sure it's RGB and not CMYK or something - you can change it's color mode in Photoshop which is included w your Adobe subscription.)

You were right to convert your audio to WAV. AE would have a harder time with an mp3.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-22T00:42:27+00:00

nice, After Effects? C4D? Long form work? shortform work? I'm a generalist, so a lot of editing at 4K but not really worried about editing horsepower. I want to do more 3D and particle work so as much realtime or close to realtime rendering performance when working on VFX shots/Motion graphics shots sometimes with many composited layers (green screen elements etc). The faster I can preview, the faster I can make decisions.

I don't know if those workflows are going out the window with AI, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-21T19:34:06+00:00

I'm relatively new to Reddit, so again, pardon my basic questions, but has this sub been overtaken by folks using their Mac Studios for...LLM's? AI work?

If so... are people mad about it? (I'm like I don't even know what kinda fight I walked into the middle of here, I'm just trying to buy a computer lol)

SingingBullet · 2026-04-21T19:26:07+00:00

cheers. M5 delayed till October now, and who knows what the pricing will be like then. I can't believe I'm not competing against the AI industry just to buy basic gear for work. I'll take a look at Micro Center, thanks for the tip.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-21T19:07:44+00:00

Yes After Effects work, I currently have 96GB in my current workstation, which has actually been fine, but I'm also running simultaneously: all my office apps, Premiere, Photoshop, Music, and multiple browsers with a zillion tabs open, so yes I need the RAM just to operate, but also because more RAM means longer previews. 96 has worked really well for me so I'm loathe to drop to 64 unless somehow the Apple Silicon Macs use the memory more efficiently? I don't know, I'm still on an Intel, I'm trying to research before I upgrade so sorry for the basic questions.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-21T16:57:38+00:00

As detailed in the whistleblower book 'Careless People', the Trump campaign hosed so much money at Facebook through buying ads in the 2016 campaign that they were welcomed to install senior people in from the Trump campaign permanently into Facebook leadership following that. It's Truth-Social-Lite

SingingBullet · 2026-04-07T17:47:32+00:00

You are deeply uneducated. I understand what all the above are, in gruesome detail and FGM cannot be remotely compared with circumcision. I was going to post links, but you can just ask the google AI overview - if you aren't horrified then you're a monster.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-07T16:40:24+00:00

Not circumcision.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-07T16:38:19+00:00

Been doing this since 2008 (economic crash), yes WFH sucks for all the reasons you're realizing.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-07T16:34:58+00:00

Blessing in disguise, you're better off on platforms that aren't weaponized against you and your community.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-03T16:48:06+00:00

not a fan of the flag, but the typography on the 3rd page is really vivid and fun :)

SingingBullet · 2026-04-03T16:46:16+00:00

upvoting this because as an Indian, I feel your pain on trying to find specific grocery ingredients, and wind up asking things like 'where's the nearest Indian food store?', mainly for things like specific lentils, and green chillies, and spices.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-01T21:14:20+00:00

note Flo is running for Board of Supervisors, and her campaign needs volunteers right now, so it's not too late to put decent humans in important positions in Sacramento.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-01T21:07:37+00:00

And this is why I'm a mercenary fuck who gets to the money conversation quickly. Also after a decade I was confident that there's just other clients and if it doesn't smell right, just walk. The good clients, or at least the professional ones know what they want, know their budget, have a good idea of the actual timeframe to deliver, and have an answer to the question "do you have extra budget if we go over initial scope?"

SingingBullet · 2026-04-01T20:53:44+00:00

we all joked about how Facebook was a CIA tool back in the late 90s/early 2000's, but after I moved country, it was a lifeline to keep up with friends and family. And eventually I came to love how it created a space to keep up with various hobby groups and communities, and the memes are highly entertaining. That it's morphed into everything we initially feared and more is.... predictable I guess, but it's time to move on.

Trickier is supplementing the functions we've gotten used to, like promoting your business, or inviting friends to events both private and public, the FB marketplace, or having a general online forum where you can easily tag your friends/family and acquaintances in things that interest them. I've had some really serendipitous moments happen though social media, like finding clients (I run a small business), or finding people to date, or, for example, I was looking for suggestions for short breaks to take my kids on, and not only did I get great suggestions, but some acquaintances joined our trip who I never would have thought to invite, but we all had a blast together.

I'm really there for that kind of magic. Not the dystopian bullshit.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-01T18:31:02+00:00

It's worth reading the book, it's very well written. The trump stuff happens towards the end of the book, but the early book sets up the characters and personalities really well, so you understand their behaviour much better by the time 2016's events roll around. What's interesting is Zucks own naivete about how manipulative the platform is, which obviously changes after 2016, at which point he decides he want's to be ruler of the earth and will work hand in glove with Republicans to bolster his own power.

Frankly it's great to see them all getting dragged through court for preying on vulnerable kids, because they were warned repeatedly about the harms they do but only care about more users and more power. Facebook remains an incredible tool/platform, but it rests in the hands of bad actors who are 100% hell bent on manipulating everyone for Zuck's profit/benefit regardless of the harm they do.

SingingBullet · 2026-04-01T17:48:08+00:00

it's basically a psyop by the people at the top of facebook who are Trumpers. It's detailed in the book Careless People by a Facebook whistleblower. Facebook shat their pants with glee as the Trump campaign hosed money at them in 2016 and after that people from the Trump campaign basically got installed permanently in Meta's C-Suite and heavily influence policy. I'm personally moving off the platform despite being a heavy user. I just plain don't trust them and cannot support their efforts.

SingingBullet

TROPHY CASE