Powering creative control in image generation with Adobe

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Train Dreams, a period drama starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones, earned rave reviews on debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently snapped up for distribution by Netflix. The lyrical story about a logger working on America’s railroad was directed by Clint Bentley, photographed by Adolpho Veloso and edited by Parker Laramie using Premiere Pro, just one of dozens of Sundance Festival hits made using Adobe tools.

According to the Sundance Institute, Adobe's creative software remain the go-to choice for filmmakers, with 85 percent of this year’s entrants using its applications which also includes After Effects, Photoshop and the Substance 3D Collection.

Adobe’s mission is always to empower creativity through tools that give anyone the ability to express their ideas and tell their story. Now, we are expanding this vision by developing and releasing AI-driven upgrades that reduce the workload of hunting for the perfect clip, transcribing and translating footage or waiting for motion graphics to playback. It all leaves creators with more time to tell inspirational stories.

Opus, By Design, Bunnylovr, The Abama Solution, Bucks County, USA and The Legendo of Ochi were among the narrative features, documentaries, and episodic series that premiered at Sundance and were cut on Premiere Pro. Tony Benna’s Andre is an Idiot, also cut by Laramie on Premiere, won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award and Audience Award in the documentary category.

From next-gen filmmakers to industry veterans, video pros consistently choose Adobe. Writer, Director and Editor Sean Baker created his Cannes Palme d'Or and Bafta winning comedy drama Anora on Premiere Pro, saying, “It was important for me to experiment freely while staying true to the story’s authenticity and Premiere Pro allowed me to do that.”

“We’re passionate about empowering filmmakers to tell their stories and realise their creative vision,” said Ashley Still, SVP and General Manager, Adobe Creative Cloud. “These innovations will bring time savings and career support so they can focus on inspiring and captivating audiences worldwide.”

That why this year’s Sundance Festival coincided with announcements of exciting new product features that leverage Adobe Firefly to support creators, filmmakers and artists to explore, ideate and bring their creative visions to life. Let’s take a look:

Find the right clip in seconds

Premiere Pro has had a substantial update that helps accelerate post-production workflows. Creators now have new power to easily identify content within shots, find footage faster and go global in seconds. These latest features are now available in beta and include an AI-powered search function which is all about saving editors’ time, especially in larger projects with a lot of footage.

Instead of painstakingly hunting through shots manually, Media Intelligence in Premiere Pro will automatically recognise clip content – including objects, locations, camera angles or metadata like shoot date or camera type. Editors can use natural language to type in the clip type they want into the new Search Panel and surface the exact clip they need in seconds instead of wasting effort sifting through gigabytes of files.

Caption translation 

Captions are more important than ever as filmmakers scale their content for reach, engagement and accessibility globally – but until now, editors have been slowed down by manual translations, disrupting their workflow and often requiring additional expense. Now, this Premiere Pro feature (currently in beta) offers native caption translation in 17 languages, so customers can expand to new audiences quickly and accurately.

Innovation in After Effects

Performance improvements are also coming to After Effects including improved caching for longer playback and enhanced support for HDR content.

Adobe is introducing a faster caching system that means even older desktops and laptops can now play back entire compositions in After Effects for the first time, without having to pause for caching. As soon as a comp is cached, press play, and spend more time watching creative work with less time spent waiting.

With support for PQ and HLG video, motion designers will also be able to view their HDR comps accurately with improved video scopes that support HDR. Whether you’re working on a laptop or using professional I/O hardware to send an HDR signal to a calibrated reference monitor, it’s just as easy to work in HDR as it is to work in SDR with the latest version of After Effects (beta).

Camera to Cloud ​– Canon support 

The latest integration for Frame.io Camera to Cloud (C2C) is with Canon’s C80 and C400 cameras. This means you can now automatically upload proxy files directly from these Canon cameras to Frame.io, giving post-production teams and production partners access to footage from anywhere within moments of image capture. And since Premiere Pro supports raw camera formats from these cameras, this integration allows teams to get the best of both worlds: speed and quality. Send proxy files to the cloud quickly to start an edit and relink to the camera originals before your final delivery.

Support of Underrepresented Creators and Filmmakers

Adobe also announced an additional $5 million investment in the Film & TV Fund to support underrepresented filmmakers in finding career opportunities on-screen and behind the camera.

Three filmmakers who were supported through the Adobe Film & TV Fund grant last year had films premiering at Sundance: María Gabriela Torres, editor of The Librarians, Isabel Castro, director of Selena y Los Dinos, and Mario Fierro, editor of Sweet Talkin’ Guy.

Group Effort Initiative (GEI), launched by Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, is also joining the Adobe Film & TV Fund, offering mentorship, training and career programs for the next generation of editors, marketers and creatives.