How do I create my own text special effects script?

[billsbayou]

I created special effects for text in Adobe Premiere by tweaking the effects parameters one frame at a time.  I really liked the way it came out, but I want to create something (a script?) that will affect whatever text I use and in whatever video I create.

The key is to ask the right question, but I'm not even sure what the question is.  I'm not sure if what I'm asking is a scripting feature of some sort.  I don't even know where to begin looking.  I want to create a special effects package for fonts, but I have no idea how to type the correct question in a search engine. 

For example, in the video below, I wanted a high-energy effect to go with a fan chant we use at football games.  I created it by using two layers.  The top layer was unmodified text with a heavy stroke.  I used "Battery Park" by the way.  The lower layer is a duplicate of the top layer, but each frame I used the chromatic effects filter and tweaked each value at random.  The chant is done three times, so I just copied the one chant, with effects, and made two additional copies. 

I'd like to write a script or whatever it takes, so that I can type in any text and everything I did for this text will be done again and again.  I know how to edit the special effects, but I want something to do my special effects for me.  (No idea if I'm making sense)  Just point me to a tutorial that will teach me the correct first place to begin.

Here's the video of me wearing my video screen hat.  Ignore the idiot under the hat. I'm really only talking about what I did to the "Who Dat" chant at the beginning of the video. The video I play on the hat has a very immature PowerPoint feel to it.  I want to create a video that has a consistent, high-energy feel.  And yes, I re-edit the video for each home game.

[billsbayou]

I think I'm on my way.  Just typing out the post, above, put me on the right track.  I don't know if I can stick to the basics of JavaScript-based ExtendScript or if I'll have to go deeper with C++ and the AE Plug-In SDK.  The first step in any artistic endeavor is to refine the vision of what I want to do, then see what it takes to get it done.

[Rick Gerard]

How familiar are you with After Effects? At first glance all you would need is a couple of animation presets that you could apply to a text layer or a fairly simple Mogrt that you could animate in Premiere Pro.

I didn't see anything in the Who Dat intro that could not be driven by adding markers to an audio track and referencing the timing and the text to the marker and the marker name in a text layer. Not much to that. Just a couple of expressions that point to the layer markers that you would add to the audio track.

Back in the day, Premiere Pro would allow you to open an audio track and analyze the speech then generate markers on the audio track that contained every word spoken. You could even add a text file with the script to help the speech analysis get the words right. Sadly, that went away, but you can still fairly easily add and name markers to an audio file in Audition. I think that is where I would start for some kind of automated text animation.

I just had another idea. You could just convert your audio to keyframes, check the levels, then every time the audio level started up past a certain level as you spoke a word, it could trigger either the visibility of a text layer or the movement of a text animator to automatically time the cuts to the next text layer. 

I can think of a lot of options that would take a lot less time than writing a script. I wouldn't even go there unless this was a two or three times a week project because no script is going to do voice analysis so you are going to have to do some typing anyway. It seems to me like tying a few words and using a couple of animation presets or Mogurts would take about as long as typing a few words and running a script.

[billsbayou]

Thanks for the feedback.  I'm very new to AE.  MOGRTs are the kind of thing that I didn't find until you pointed me in that direction.  You're giving me lots to think about.  As for the timing, I'm editing a new video for the Who Dat hat once each week for the rest of the NFL season.  I'm not in the video graphics field, so my editing time is limited.  That's why I'm looking for ways to duplicate the process without re-doing every step in the process for each bit of text.  If I can get that going, then I can improve the quality of the video.  It's only a 2-minute looping video (a limit of the hardware), but it's rewarding to see the other fans reacting positively to the novelty of the hat.