Title and Action Safe

John Dickinson — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:59:24 +0000

Title and action safe guides are used to ensure that important content isn’t placed outside the viewable areas of a television screen. If you’re creating a project that will be seen on both 4:3 and 16:9 televisions, the best way to ensure that 4:3 viewers don’t miss any of the action is to use guides with a 4:3 safe zone. Up until After Effects CS4 I used a Photoshop file created for that very purpose, but now 4:3 safe guides are included as part of the built in title/action safe guides. So if you’re like me and you care if 4:3 viewers miss out on the full experience of your work, be sure to use these guides.

The shortcut for toggling Title/Action Safe Guides is to hold down the Option key (Alt on Windows) and click the Grid and Guides button at the bottom left of the Composition panel.

Broadcast Terminology Roundup

John Dickinson — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:57:38 +0000

As a broadcast designer there are many terms one must understand in order to know what the hell a client is asking for. The problem is people use different names for the same thing. When I was first asked for a Clusterbuster I thought the guy wanted some kind of chocolate bar. So once and for all I’d like to create a list of broadcast terminology that we can all use, and I’d like you to be involved. I’m going to start off by listing some of the terms I use and what I know to be the definition, and other names (I’ll include more as I remember). If you think you know differently, have another name for the same thing, or know of something I’ve missed, let us know. When the list is complete, I’ll post a document everyone can refer to:

Lower Third Super (lower third, super strap, strap, banner): A graphic that sits at the bottom third of the screen and includes information, most commonly someone’s name. The type on them can be a “slug” (ex. 5-alarm fire) or a “locator” (123 west elm st) or an “identifier”. (Joe Six-Pack from East Wherever)

Full Frame Super: A graphic, usually text, that covers the entire frame.

Snipe: 5-10 second lower third animations that play during the show promoting some other show or what’s coming up.

Interstitial (Clusterbuster): A short show (up to 5 minutes) that is broadcast in-between full length shows.

Promo (Promotion): A sequence that advertises an upcoming show.

Bumper (Next, Promo): A short sequence (5-10 seconds) that plays in-between shows, that advertises an upcoming show(s).

Play Off (Pingel, Bump in): A short sequence that plays before an advertising break.

Play On (Pingel, Bump out): A short sequence that plays after an advertising break.

Packshot (End Page, End Board): A graphic at the end of a promotion that includes the date and time of a show(s).

Ident (Station ID): A short animation that culminates with a channel’s name/logo. Used to brand a channel.

Animatic: A rough animated storyboard used to give some idea about the timing of a sequence.

Opening Title (Open, Leader, Intro, Intro sequence): The sequence that plays at the beginning of a show to open the show.

Billboard: A commercial right after a show or promo. For example, “This program was made possible by “brandname”. Preferably with the same design treatment as the program before it.

Classification (Netherlands = NICAM, Ratings bug): Graphic before a program designed to inform viewer of age suitability for that program. Can also be a bug.

Bug: A small graphic (well usually small ) that appears in the corner of the screen, used to identify a channel, show etc.

Transition (Swipe): A short animation that acts as a transition between segments of a show. It has a logo or is designed according to the content.

Slate: A graphic placed at the beginning of sequence used to display information about the sequence, for example Duration, Format, etc.

Over The Shoulder (OTS): The graphic that sits over a news anchors’s shoulder.

After Effects: Lower Third

John Dickinson — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:38:26 +0000

Lower thirds are graphics which are placed at the lower third of the screen and contain various information, most commonly the name of the person speaking. Here’s an example of one created using Illustrator, After Effects and Particular. Example movie Download project

Motionworks » Broadcast

Title and Action Safe

Broadcast Terminology Roundup

After Effects: Lower Third