If you are a shooter or video producer, you know that there are many things that go into creating great video. Sure, using the right gear is key. Composition and lighting are key. But after the video is shot, shot selection, pacing, and color correction have to be considered for the edit. Then there are graphics. Titles, lower thirds, transitions, and the like have to be designed and animated. There are tons of parts that go into making one complete, great-looking video. And it’s hard to master every aspect of video production – not to mention the fact that time and budget constraints make things even harder.
Good thing there are some really good resources available that can help you make better videos without a ton of effort or huge budget overages. We’re talking about templates – Premiere Pro and After Effects templates, to be more specific.
Motion Array is one marketplace offering a ton of After Effects and Premiere Pro templates for video producers and designers of all levels. But before we get there, let’s talk about the things you need to use and implement a template.
First, you need access to the software that these templates are based upon. While maybe this goes without saying, if you want to use a Premiere Pro or After Effects template, you need Premiere Pro and After Effects. You may already have an Adobe Creative Cloud membership, but if you don’t, you can sign up for $49 per month, and along with After Effects and Premiere Pro, you’ll also have access to the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Audition, InDesign, and several other industry-standard programs.
The good news is that you don’t need to be a design genius or a master at After Effects or Premiere Pro to use a template. That said, it’s a good idea to have a handle on the basics. How to work with footage, layers, and keyframes will come in handy. More good news: you can learn almost everything you need to know through free tutorials online. Motion Array has a growing catalog of free After Effects tutorials and Premiere Pro tutorials to help you learn the ropes in quick fashion.
Next up is finding the templates that you need. As mentioned above, Motion Array has a growing library of templates, with almost 4,000 combined After Effects templates and Premiere Pro templates to choose from, and more being added daily. This is along with several other creative assets in stock music, stock video, and motion graphics.
Templates can be used as a full turnkey solution to a project where you only have to change out text and images or video, or they can be used as a tool like any other in video production. They can give a little boost to a project’s design or be tinkered with and customized for a perfect fit. It’s really up to the user how they incorporate their templates.
Motion Array’s Premiere Pro templates range in categories like edits, toolkits, transitions, titles, presets, logos, and slideshows. Some templates like edits will give a user everything they need for a completed project, while templates in the transitions and logos categories offer up specific elements for a project.
Here are a few examples of Premiere Pro templates available at Motion Array:
Moving into After Effects, Motion Array breaks down templates into photo/video, text, logos, lower thirds, transitions, presets, and some other assets. Some templates will be loaded with studio-level animation sequences from beginning to end. Others will highlight specific elements like lower thirds or titles to add to the overall quality of a video without dictating the look.
Here are some of the After Effects templates that you can download at Motion Array:
There are a few more things to Motion Array that make it worthwhile for template hunting. First, Motion Array now offers requests from paid subscribers. This means if you can’t find the exact template you need, you can submit a simple request, and MA producers can fulfill your request at no additional cost to you.
Also, Motion Array offers simple pricing and simple licensing to make the entire process easier for you. On the licensing side, they house all of their assets under a single license that grants you the right to use an asset however you see fit for a project. This means the size and usage of the project doesn’t matter. You won’t have to purchase an extended license for a major commercial. It’s all the same license, all the time.
And when it comes to pricing, Motion Array aims to have the best pricing in town. They do this by offering a subscription model instead of a pay-per-download model. Under the pay-per-download model, users pay upwards of $30-$60 for a single template. But with Motion Array’s Pro plan at $49 per month for 20 downloads, a single asset is only about $2.50. If you need less downloads per month, there are two other tiers available. The Plus plan is $29 per month for ten downloads, and the Lite plan is $19 per month for four downloads.
And just like that, with a little bit of practice, the right software, and an arsenal of great templates, you can improve your videos with ease.