Auto Reframe on cropped, resized video clip.

[#1]

So I'm creating a video wherein there is an overlaid video in the upper-left corner.  It's a "talking head" recorded from a Zoom call, while a presentation is showing on the rest of the screen.  That "talking head" clip has been resized and cropped, so it fits perfectly in the upper-right corner, in an area where the presentation was designed to allow that talking-head clip to fit.  It's perfect.

Except the guy slowly slides to his left during the presentation.  So by the time the presentation ends, you can't see half his face.  Obviously, I need Auto Reframe for that clip, so the "camera" will follow him.

But as soon as I apply the Auto Reframe effect, it immediately un-does the resizing, moving, and cropping I did.  Ok, fine. So I'll just re-do it.

But the stupid thing won't LET me re-do the cropping and re-sizing and moving I did before I added Auto Reframe.  In fact, it seems you can't resize or crop or do ANYTHING after you've added Auto Reframe!!  WTF?!!

So how am I supposed to do this?!!

[#2]

So I'm creating a video wherein there is an overlaid video in the upper-left corner.  It's a "talking head" recorded from a Zoom call, while a presentation is showing on the rest of the screen.  That "talking head" clip has been resized and cropped, so it fits perfectly in the upper-right corner, in an area where the presentation was designed to allow that talking-head clip to fit.  It's perfect.

Except the guy slowly slides to his left during the presentation.  So by the time the presentation ends, you can't see half his face.  Obviously, I need Auto Reframe for that clip, so the "camera" will follow him.

But as soon as I apply the Auto Reframe effect, it immediately un-does the resizing, moving, and cropping I did.  Ok, fine. So I'll just re-do it.

But the stupid thing won't LET me re-do the cropping and re-sizing and moving I did before I added Auto Reframe.  In fact, it seems you can't resize or crop or do ANYTHING after you've added Auto Reframe!!  WTF?!!

So how am I supposed to do this?!!

[#3]

Well motion in general is cancled out by Auto Reframe, since AR is the "automatic" version of that. The crop thing I have also been having issue with though. Even when the effect is disabled in the effects pannel it still applies when I render which is very annoying. You most likely are going to need to just crop and key it by hand it sounds like. [I don't know of a better method]

[#4]

This isn't what auto-reframe is designed to handle. A-R is designed to re-format from say a horizontal sequence to create a square or even vertical image for use in social media. That is not even close to the situation you're working on.

Use a slow keyframed motion effect on the guy as he's sliding. On the clip of him, go to the motion area of the Effects Control Panel, where you resized the image? And this time, use the Position parameters. Keyframe his position as he moves.

If it's perfectly steady, a very simple keyframe set at beginning, another near end would do. If he moves a bit more and less at times, you will need to set a few more keyframes.

Neil

[#5]

So Auto Reframe *doesn't* use a point to follow a person around on the screen and keep that person centered within the frame?  I thought that was literally what it did...

Ok, so this keyframe motion effect...  I've honestly never heard of it before...  How do I use it?  How do I "set" a "keyframe?"  He slides very slowly -- like, over an hour-long presentation, he manages to slide about a foot to his left.  Enough so that with the cropping I had to do to fit the video in the corner, a bit less than half his face has disappeared off the right side of the frame.

Thanks.

[#6]

Auto-reframe is as I noted designed to repurpose and reformat one video sequence shape into another. Along with moving the graphics to new locations and all of that work.

What you want is a simple keyframed movement of that image. Far simpler.

As I noted above, go to the Effects Control panel, where you set the parameters for applied effects. At the top are the "intrinsic" or built-in effects, for postion and motion and opacity. They have little drop-down arrows on the left to open the rest of the controls for each.

You can quickly play with them to see what they do. The Position controls have two parameters, X and Y axis. The left one controls left-to-right/horizontal positiion, the right one top-to-bottom/vertical position.

There is also a scale parameter, where you can make the image larger or smaller.

Each parameter has a little stopwatch icon on the far left ... click on that icon, it turns blue to show that parameter is being keyframed, and it places a keyframe marker in the window on the right side of the ECP.

If his movement is very slow and stable, it's really easy. Use the position and size parameters to put him where he needs to be at the beginning, and click any stopwatch icons on any parameter you set that will need to change.

Then go to the end and use the parameter controls to move him to where he needs to be then. It makes a keyframe there also, and now as you play it back, Premiere will slowly move him or as it will appear, he will stay the same.

Neil