Adding cinematic wide-screen bars to your video is arguably the easiest and most effective ways of giving it that professional look-a pro studio producción, if you may say so-no less than letterboxing. The method is getting wide application within video editing to introduce drama, form focus, and give a feeling similar to that of feature films shot in a wide-screen aspect ratio. In this tutorial, we are going to show you how you can add cinematic wide-screen bars in Adobe After Effects. As we progress through this, we'll mention the creative advantages of this approach and how it can make the difference in your video projects.
Whether you are a beginner in video editing or an expert at it, letterboxing will take the work to the next level. Now, we are going to start off by explaining what cinematic wide-screen bars are and why these are used, then moving on to the step-by-step, practical tutorial of creating them in After Effects. Let's get started.
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What is a Cinematic Wide-Screen Bar?
Cinematic widescreen bars are the black bars appearing along the top and bottom of a video with often an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 or 2.39:1 for that Hollywood-type wide-screen feel. Letterboxing is sometimes referred to and draws its roots from earlier days when films were projected onto a wide format but appeared on normal TVs with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Filmmakers introduced these bars to preserve the original aspect ratio of their work.
Nowadays, wide-screen bars are used in video editing to give any project a more dramatic and professional flair. Whether you're working on a short film, a clip of music, or some project for YouTube, the addition of these kinds of bars can make your content more involving. This isn't about aesthetics; letterboxing also means controlling the creativity of the audience's focus by playing with frames and composition.
Why use cinematic wide-screen bars in video editing?
Well, adding cinematic widescreen bars does not only make the video cool; this simple effect serves a number of practical and creative purposes in the world of video editing:
Framing & Composition: A cinematic bar helps you to tighten up the composition of your shots. It shrinks the vertical space within the frame, thus helping the viewer's eye to stick with some other main elements. You draw attention to certain subjects or objects and add some artistry to your video.
Aesthetic Professional: Wide-screen bars are one of the major reasons editors use them-to give their footage a more professional look and feel. Any movie can look like a high-budget product since the cinematic aspect ratio is instantly recognizable.
Visual Consistency: If you are working with footage of various aspect ratios, the addition of cinematic bars can make them visually consistent across all facets. This further allows for stock footage or B-roll to be integrated within the project seamlessly and without the headache of having to match an exact aspect ratio.
Storytelling Impact: One of the other ways in which the letterbox format can be used is for storytelling enrichment. You can use it to create tension, draw attention to certain parts of the screen, and give emphasis to wide, sweeping landscapes. It's a great tool for video editors who wish to show specific emotions through framing.
How to Create Cinematic Wide-Screen Bars in After Effects
Now that we have understood why cinematic wide-screen bars are in such demand, let's dive into the details of adding them to your video editing projects using Adobe After Effects. This tutorial will walk you through how to create and customize letterboxing to get that cinematic feel within your footage.
Step 1: Open Your Project in After Effects
Open your video project in After Effects. To import your footage, go to File > Import > File, select the video you will be working on, and open it. Once the footage is inside your project, drag it into the timeline.
Step 2 — Creating a New Solid Layer for the Bars
To make the wide-screen bars, you'll have to add a new solid layer that will play the role of black bars at both the top and bottom of your frame. You do this by going to Layer > New > Solid, and there choose black as the color. Be sure to keep the size of your solid layer according to the size of your composition, such as 1920x1080 for an Full HD project.
Step 3: Masking the Solid Layer to Create the Bars
Next, you'll have to mask out the solid layer for creating the wide-screen bars. Just select the solid layer from your timeline, then using the Rectangle Mask Tool available in the toolbar at the top of the screen, draw a mask. This mask will account for the black bars at the top and bottom in your video.
This mask can be scaled to achieve an exact aspect ratio. The 2.35:1 top and bottom is about 12.5% screen-you can play with this to suit your taste more precisely.
Step 4: Editing Aspect Ratio
Also, you can fine-tune the height of the cinematic bars by changing the position and scale of the mask in the Mask Properties tab of the solid layer. Scrub the Mask Expansion slider to expand or contract the thickness of the bars until it feels right to you for total control over exactly how much screen is covered.
You can even create a style guide to maintain the same across your project. Go back inside the mask expansion and add in an easy expression that will connect the size of the bars to the resolution of your footage.
Step 5: Animate the Bars (Optional)
This is where, if you want to get a little fancier with the video editing, you can also animate those wide-screen bars. For example, you might have an opening shot where the bars slide into position, slowly revealing the full frame of your video. That's a cool effect to build suspense, or to give your video a sleek, modern intro.
To do this, simply keyframe the Mask Expansion value at the start of your timeline and alter this over time. This will make the black bars smoothly slide into place during the opening few seconds of your video.
Step 6: Export Your Cinematic Video
Once happy with the aesthetics of your cinematic widescreen bars, it is time to export the final video. Go to Composition > Add to Render Queue, and choose your settings for output. Take a second to make sure you have selected an aspect ratio and resolution that will maintain the letterboxing effect when the video is played back.
How to Export Videos with Cinematic Bars Best
Now that you have efficiently created cinematic wide-screen bars in After Effects, let's take a look at a couple of best practices when exporting your video. Arguably, one of the biggest mistakes video editors make with regard to exporting is not double-checking the aspect ratio, where the white and black bars come out stretched or distorted.
Aspect Ratio Check: Right before rendering, ensure that the export settings include the aspect ratio you used while adding the widescreen bars. For example, in this case, if you added the widescreen bars in a ratio of 2.35:1, now it is time to make sure that it goes into your final output settings accordingly.
Resolution: This may be Full HD, which is 1920x1080, 4K, or other resolution, depending on the kind of project you are working on. When exporting letterboxed videos, make sure that the resolution doesn't affect the integrity of the bars and footage underneath them.
Use a high-quality codec: Use a high-quality codec such as H.264 or ProRes. This insures the black bars are sharp, and your video itself looks professional.
Final Thoughts: How to Improve Your Video Editing with Cinematic Wide-Screen Bars
Adding After Effects cinematic wide-screen bars is one of those simple yet powerful editing techniques that will raise the notch for your video editing projects. Through framing shots carefully and presenting them in a letterbox format, you are creating an immersive and professional final product. Be it for movies, commercial videos, or even YouTube videos, this technique lets you add a touch of cinematic flair to your work.
Keep in mind that video editing is about storytelling, and how you frame shots can have a great impact on the audience's perception of your content. With just a little bit of creativity and attention to detail, cinematic wide-screen bars will become an essential tool in your editing toolbox.