AF Production & Tools

With my present job being a full time Video Editor (which I have now been doing for about 3 years) I have learned a few things about some of the production tools out there. One of them being Adobe After Effects (the specific version being 7.0). After Effects is a tool that can be used for doing anything from designing a Credit intro to a movie production or just adding some flare to a college project. It's an extremely useful tool in my line of work, and is actually a fun thing to play around with for those of you who are both brave enough and nerdy enough to mess around for a while. Actually if you are practiced enough you can make some decent money using your new found skills.

I know that most of this information is exclusive to those if you who are lucky enough to own Adobe After Effects so for those of you who are looking at buying, you can get some additional information and prices here:

http://tryit.adobe.com/us/cs4/aftereffects_c/?sdid=EFNUS

A lot of the effects I use on after effects are used mainly for announcements of some sort. Most of my work involves video announcements, and I use AF (After Effects) avidly to get that point across with as much excitement and effectiveness as possible. Both AF and Premiere (and Adobe editing software) work together quite well, and each allow you to render your projects through sequences and compositions into ".avi" files which are a form of video file. Depending on the quality of your computer you can actually edit, produce and render a project quite quickly.

After Effects is a highly detailed program that allows you to edit and add effects to each individual layer of your composition. This feature is extremely helpful at times when you need to go back and change something. which unfortunately happens a lot in my line of work. There are several forms of layers such as a solid, null, camera, adjustment, and light. Each deal in specific uses for after effects, for example the solid layer can be used to change the background color of your composition; and the camera layer is extremely useful when using the 3D effects in your composition. The camera layer allows you to shift camera angles in your timeline allowing you to view the piece from a different perspective and add some excitement to your production.

You can use the 3D effects on each layer by specifically clicking the 3D button next to each layer name (the button looks like a 3 Dimensional cube). After doing thing you can actually key frame each section within the timeline and set the effects to being, end, or move at these specific key frames. When using the Camera with the 3D effect you can give your text the appearance of coming off of the page instead of it being 2D and pasted onto the background solid.

There are some amazing little add-ons and presets you can ad to AF. Each of them have a pre-designed effect, which save you the time of trying to figure it our yourself. You can purchase them online and download them directly. Often times you can actually find several presets free, online. There are presets such as a light-saber effect. So for you Star Wars fans out there you can finally release your feature film, using the real effect, instead of using florescent PVC pipe. There are add-ons out on the market that allow you to using some amazing partical effects, like animated explosions, and crazy lines. One of these programs that Ive used is "Trapcode Particular 1.5". The sad news is, this one is a little pricey, it's up and around $300. So for those of you who are planning on making some money at this... this would be a wonderful addition to your arsenal of AF production tools. The particular add-on can be used to create effects such as light streaks (for a great example of the effect you can view the iPod Nano commercial with the dancing people and the "light streaks") You can create some animated explosions, fireworks, a barrage of crazy lines, nearly anything is possible.

Also if youre looking for some more direct and helpful AF video tutorials you can look up Andrew Kramer at:

www.videocopilot.net

He's got some great tutorials on after effects that help give you some hands on training. He's shows you a lot of cool effects and some of the AF capabilities as well. On his site, he also has a lot of presets and add-ons for sale, such as "Riot Gear" which hold several grunge themed effects that can really spice up your projects. There's also a preset containing all of the Action movie essentials, like Blood Spatters, Explosions, Mayhem in a bottle.. Pretty much anything you action junkies can think of to throw into your own little home movies. So I suggest going and checking him out for some great ideas and After Effects Walkthroughs.

Overall After Effects is an essential for anyone serious about movie production and any serious form of editing as well. If you have any questions on AF you can email me at "jlepka@yahoo.com"