Montage
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Avid Studio’s Montage is a method of enhancing your movies with off-the-shelf slideshow, animation and multitrack editing effects. Numerous professionally designed sequences, called templates, are available to give your productions instant impact. The templates are grouped into matching themes, so that along with the technical sophistication of the templates you will also find it easy to maintain a consistent look.
But the prepared templates are only half the magic of Montage. The other half is customization. Montage templates can include several types of custom data, including video, text captions, photos and more.
Montage in the Library
Templates are grouped by theme in the Montage section of the Library. Each theme consists of a set of templates that can be added to your project as ‘Montage clips’. You can create attractive, visually consistent sequences that integrate artist-created titles and animations with your own photos and video.
Montage titles vs. standard titles
Although you can make fancy ‘titles’ from Montage templates, these are not the same as those made in the Title Editor. Each has its particular strengths.
Montage templates are especially easy to use, and can provide effects not available in ordinary titles. On the other hand, the Title Editor gives you greater control over the appearance of titles and the animation of their graphical elements.
The template collection
Each of the templates in the Library’s Montage section is designed to cover a typical presentational need. Within each theme, the available templates are designed to complement one another when used in the same project.
Templates in the Library’s Montage section. Some details are shown (e.g. the presence of text captions) and some omitted (e.g. ratings) because of current Library settings.
For instance, most themes provide an Opening template and a matching Ending template. Many themes also provide one or more Segue templates you can use when transitioning from one video or image clip to another.
Montage in your project
The first step in using a chosen template is to drop it onto your project timeline. Once there, the Montage template is treated as an ordinary, self-contained video clip. To customize the clip by filling in the template’s blanks, you will double-click the Montage clip to open the Montage Editor.
Each template defines a video or graphic sequence with blanks to be filled in by you. The available customizations can take several forms. For instance, most templates provide one or more slots for video or image clips. Many let you supply text captions for titles, and some have additional parameters for other special properties.