After Effects – Essentials

After Effects – Essentials

This course runs from 9:00am to 5:00pm on Monday 15th & Tuesday 16th August 2022.

This is the second course in our Video Post-Production series.

The industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects toolset now brings you better ways to work, connecting your desktop and mobile apps with all your creative assets, so you can create your most stunning visuals yet.

Adobe® After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. It is primarily used by video editors to create motion graphics and also visual effects. It allows users to animate, edit, and compose media 2D or 3D space with many different built-in tools and third party plug-ins.

In this 2-day course, participants will learn:

The Fundamentals of After Effects

• Understanding compositions
• Creating and manipulating layers
• Building animation
• Working with effects
• Introduction to 3D
• Understanding how to render

Up and Running with After Effects

• Importing elements
• Organising projects
• Building compositions with layers
• Animating with keyframes
• Adding effects and graphics
• Output techniques

Understanding Compositions

• Exploring composition and project settings
• Importing Photoshop files as compositions
• Importing Illustrator files as compositions
• Viewing files in the comp panel
• Understanding Pre-compose
• Positioning layers with snapping
• Interpreting footage
• Keyboard shortcuts for compositions

Building Compositions with Layers

• Defining layers
• Creating type layers
• Precise typesetting techniques
• Creating layer solids and shapes with masks
• Creating design elements with shape layers
• Layer compositing: Masks, switches, and blend modes
• Using track mattes
• Precise compositing with variable-width feathered masks
• Working smarter by swapping layers
• Keyboard shortcuts for layers

Creating Animation

• Understanding animation
• Adding and adjusting keyframes
• Understanding keyframe interpolation (CC 2014.1)
• Understanding keyframe interpolation
• Adjusting keyframes in the Graph Editor
• The power of parenting
• Using null objects
• Creating expressions with the pick whip
• Creating and adjusting motion paths
• Building complex graphics with Pre-compose
• Preparing audio for animation
• Generating graphics with audio
• Working smarter: Navigating the Timeline

Using Effects

• Understanding the order of effects
• Generating backgrounds with effects
• Generating a scribble effect
• Animating strokes with effects
• Using adjustment layers
• Adding gradients and glows
• Saving pan and scan presets
• Fixing exposure with Levels
• Fixing colour casts with Colour Finesse 3
• Masking individual effects

Adobe® After Effects CC 2020 will be used in class. It is much less applicable to earlier versions of the software.

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