On this page you'll find helpful hints and tips on inserting our Lower Thirds Volumes 1 and 2 onto your footage. This help page cannot cover each and every possible method to use lower thirds creatively and it's therefore recommended that you experiment with your non-linear edit package to find the look that suits your needs. For the purposes of simplicity we'll be using Adobe Premiere 6.5 but these techniques should apply to any of the more popular non-linear editors but the wording of some of the features may differ.

OVERVIEW: There are several ways to overlay a lower third onto footage depending on the effect you're trying to achieve.

Perhaps you want the lower third to be slightly transparent, or maybe you want it completely solid. Alternatively you may desire the footage to gradually fade and blend into the lower third. We'll cover the three basic techniques to achieve the various ways you can get the look your after. Hint: Some methods suit certain types of lower thirds better than others.

Generally you'll want to put your footage on the A track (Video 1A in Premiere), your lower third onto the second video track (Video 2) and finally add your text/title onto a third track (Video 3). By default Premiere only gives you one superimpose track but you can easily add extra video tracks as desired by selecting Timeline>Add Video Track. See Fig.1 on the right

METHOD 1: Overlay a lower third so it's slightly transparent

Firstly, arrange your footage as mentioned above with the main movie on the video A track, the lower third on the Video 2 and reserve video 3 for your text and titles.

Right click on the lower third and select Video Options>Transparency. See Fig. 2 below

Now click on the Key type: and select Screen. Leave the 'Cutoff' at 100. See Fig. 3 below

Hit OK and that's it! Preview your work and your lower third should be transparent. See Fig. 4 below

METHOD 2: Overlay a lower third so it's completely solid

As before, arrange your footage as mentioned above with the main movie on the video A track, the lower third on the Video 2 and reserve video 3 for your text and titles. Now go through method 1 above so you have a transparent lower third as seen in Fig. 4 above

Find the Video>Transform>Clip option in the Video Effects window of Premiere and click and hold then drag it over to your main video footage. Release the mouse to apply a Clip to the movie. We're going to 'clip' the footage out from underneath the lower third leaving it solid.

REMEMBER - WE'RE CLIPPING THE FOOTAGE, NOT THE THIRD!

In the Effect controls move the 'Clip Bottom' slider to about 24. You may need to experiment on this amount depending on the height of the lower third you're using. What this is doing is cutting the footage off at the desired percentage position. If you move the slider to 50 you'll see half of your footage will be missing.

And that's it! Preview your work and your lower third should be solid. See Fig. 7 below and compare it to Fig.4 above

METHOD 3: Overlay a lower third so it blends in with your footage

Arrange your footage as mentioned above with the main movie on the video A track, the lower third on the Video 2 and reserve video 3 for your text and titles.

As before right click on the lower third and select Video Options>Transparency. See Fig. 2 below

Last time we selected Screen but this time we're going to use a gradient bitmap to blend the two pieces of footage together. So select Image Matte and then press Choose... on the top left. See Fig. 8 below

A dialog box will appear allowing you to pick a gradient bitmap.

We're going to use one like the image on the right. The black areas will be transparent and the white will be solid. Any gray in-between will be blended in between the main footage and the lower third. If you don't have an image editor you can download a broadcast resolution version of the one we used on the right here right-click to save it to your project folder and then select it in the Choose... dialog box

Hit OK and that's it! Preview your work and your lower third should be blended into your footage. See Fig. 9 below. Take the time to compare it to Fig.4 and Fig.7 above

SUMMARY: As stated, there's several ways to overlay a lower third onto footage. Feel free to explore your non-linear editor's features.

* You may also wish to look at luminance keys or cropping and stretching the lower third to make it taller, shorter or wider.

* If you have a paint package try making white to black gradients going from left to right to blend in the lower third in a different way. Try making gradient shapes too.

Thanks for buying our Lower Thirds! Happy experimenting!