Adobe Announces Project Rush: Video Editing Optimized For Social Media [u]

Posted on by Larry

[Updated June 24, 2018, with a commentary from Larry Jordan.]

This morning, June 9, 2018, Adobe announced a new system of integrated video editing specifically targeted at YouTubers, vloggers, and anyone that needs to tell stories with video: Project Rush.

In today’s world, the Internet lives on video. All too often, the best video editing tools are not portable enough for today’s social media stars.

So, Adobe went back to the drawing board and, taking tools from Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Adobe After Effects CC and Adobe Audition, created a brand-new, fully-integrated video editing app targeted at the video needs of social media.

Available later this year, Project Rush is the first all-in-one, cross-device video editing app that makes creating and sharing online content easier than ever. This integrated desktop and mobile solution automatically syncs all your projects to the cloud allowing you to work anywhere, on any device.

Shoot a video on your iPhone, edit it on your iPhone or iPad, add titles, effects, audio, then publish directly to the web. Or, begin the edit on your iPhone, then pass the edit up to Premiere for finish. Seamless and fully integrated, with an interface reimagined to make non-professional editors successful editing video under today’s deadlines.

Key points include:

Harnessing the advanced power of Adobe Creative Cloud apps like Premiere Pro and After Effects, Project Rush delivers a streamlined and intuitive user experience. Simplified editing, color, audio, and titling are at your fingertips, while Adobe Stock integration and editable Motion Graphics templates allow you to get up and running quickly and for endless ways to customize projects.

Project Rush’s direct sharing functionality – optimized across all your favorite channels – makes it possible to share on social even faster.

Adobe says the product will be released later this year. No pricing was announced.

The software will premiere later this week at VidCon 2018 and ship later this year.

Here’s a link for more information.


Larry’s Commentary

[This was first published in my weekly newsletter – June 25, 2018.]

Last Tuesday, Adobe announced a brand new product: Project Rush.  This new video app is focused on two areas where Adobe has not been strong: video editing on mobile devices and social media. Now, some would say that this is Adobe’s response to iMovie on the iPhone, and I think there is some truth in that. But there’s a bigger message here: video on social media – YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter – is as big, or bigger, than traditional media in terms of audience, audience engagement and worldwide reach. The budgets are not, but the audience is.

Equally true, however, is that this market is far outside the professional video world. Most people posting to social media are amateurs. (Witness the rise of vertical media and the shudders that sends through video pros as an example.) Yet there are millions – MILLIONS – of content creators feeding social media outlets. They need and deserve high-quality tools that don’t require a degree from a fancy film school to use.

Apple has iMovie, but, from what I’ve seen in limited demos of Project Rush, Adobe has the more completely thought-through product. Tight integration from Project Rush into Premiere, After Effects and Audition. A seamless workflow that allows someone to achieve quality results simply, with a clean transition into the professional-grade tools provided by Premiere for those that need it.

Yes, this will expand the market. Yes, this will increase the competition we face. And, yes, this will put even more stress on budgets at the low-end of the market. As has always been the case, we need to build our business on the quality of our creativity, the ability to develop long-term relationships and the focus to meet both budgets and deadlines. It won’t be easy – but, when you think about it, it never has. The tools we use are important – but the results we achieve with them are far more important.


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6 Responses to Adobe Announces Project Rush: Video Editing Optimized For Social Media [u]

  1. PHILIPPE NERON says:

    a good review Larry. Competitiveness, driven by innovation and a bit of paranoia, is what keeps you in the media game these days. Remember what happened to Amiga’s “Toaster” or Apple’s early years? Or what we are now seeing with Avid’s ProTools and Media Composer (the company has seen declining revenues, earnings, and negative cash flow for years). How about IBM or Microsoft? Once upon a time, they too were the innovators until Apple, Google, and Facebook whizzed by them. Now they struggle just to keep up!
    Key is to stay ahead of the curve and assimilate some sort of social media framework into your product line. Regardless of its limitations and its influence on leveling or normalizing the skilled creative experience worker, it ain’t going away soon.

  2. Nick Gold says:

    I’m curious if these will be free applications, or will they be their own tier of Creative Cloud subscription that includes some Adobe Cloud storage for the project syncing? Or something else?

  3. Al Davis says:

    Sorry for steering a bit off topic, but as a Premier Pro user I am baffled and upset that Adobe is focused on this new release, while the latest updates to PP (12.1 and 12.1.1 are suffering from so many documented issues, with no fixes in sight. If you look at threads on the Adobe site, as well as Creative Cow, one will see some debilitating core functionally issues. Users are forced to roll back to 12.0; and many can’t effectively work with projects already created in 12.1 (some supplied by clients and collaborators, so they have no choice).
    C’mon Adobe, fix what’s badly broken 1st!!!

    • SteveMartin says:

      Make no mistake; this app is all but admitting that Apple made the correct decision to target FCP X to YouTubers back in 2011. Heck, this “new” app even looks like iMovie/FCPX. Premiere is built on old foundations and keeps getting worse with each new release. If this app takes off; do not be surprised that Premiere is eventually deprecated. We are seeing tons of Premiere users jumping ship to Resolve for the very reasons you stated.

      Premiere is broken, and don’t expect it to be fixed anytime soon.

      • Al Davis says:

        Steve, I appreciate that you are a long-time Apple trainer. We met in Boston while you were guest instructing at a conference. I also trained with Chris Phrommayon at Future Media Concepts. In short, I was a FCP 7 devotee. I reluctantly switched to Premiere Pro, and feel it’s way more robust that FCP ever was, and certainly more stable. The recent bugs with 12.1 are horrible, but the first real issues I have experienced.

        I believe Adobe is different than Apple, because they have such a huge suite of apps that are geared toward the Pro market. What’s more, they collect monthly fees for the privilege to use their software. That said, they have a lot of $$$$ at stake, if they just let PP rot on the vine, as you seem to predict.

        Kevin Monahan of Adobe, like yourself and Larry, another person that I respect, has acknowledged the problems, and claims that fixes are forthcoming.

        My beef is that it isn’t fast enough, and feel Adobe is reneging on its contract with users. We shall see how this plays out.

        In the meantime CHEERS to you, and I hope all is well!!!!

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