Another talent is the ability to visualize the idea in your head. I do that and usually can execute it in a fairly quick time.
The main thing there being,see in your head what you want it to look like,and study graphic styles of the era involved (e.g. if doing an early 70's ITV mock,to look authentic,it will tend to be yellow-on-blue, and a US or Canadian station tended to,well still does,be views of the city at the appropriate time of day to the airing, if not simply using a logo alone).
I find the biggest hurdles getting era appropriate photos for backgrounds or continuity slides,i.e. if doing a 1961 Avengers slide,finding a photo with David Keel (the lead character in Series 1). I had that problem.
Another one for doing menus,etc.,is finding good online databases of what was on in an era,again for authenticity to era (i.e. trying to not have say a 1968 Thank Your Lucky Stars).
Another tip to good and fast making is keep the idea simple. I have done a few very complex mocks,such as a 2001 ABC Skyline (reminiscent of the loved 1970 Thames ident).,though I tend to try to do more simpler mocks,such as some of mine in APFS,like Manx (the Triskedele on a red background).
I was looking at other pieces of software - esp. Adobe After Effects / Premiere. Could someone explain what the differences in these are?
At a really simplified level, the fundamental differences between Premiere and After Effects are that Premiere is really designed for video editing and composition at a really quite advanced level - full control over the video, audio track, titles etc.
After Effects can also do composition but it's real strength is in creating special effects. When creating TV presentation mocks, After Effects would be able to cater for your needs in most cases as opposed to Premiere which would be more useful for editing larger length home videos etc.
