Week One

Due Week Two

Inspirational blog post
- create a personal blog and email the link

- inspirational blog post (something inspiring or helpful to you)
Personal Presentation

- a brief presentation of your own interests, artwork, or creative research

- anything that lets me know who you are and what you enjoy
Project One Concept

- a half page write up of your ideas for project one

- include relevant media if needed to get your idea across

- this will be discussed in class and revised (not a final draft)

Finish Exercise One Animation

- 15 to 30 seconds

- 1 background element

- 2 foreground elements

- one "character" composed of 5 layers parented together

- utilize easy-ease (right click keyframe and choose easy-ease)

---- Feel Free to Email me With Any Questions ----

Topics Discussed Week One

• Syllabus
• Overview of Class Projects
• Intro to After Effects layout and workflow
• Project Panel - view all project media and compositions
• Importing elements into AE
• Adding elements to Compositions
• Elements within compositions (Layers) are manipulated in the Timeline Panel
• Animation of layers
• Viewing the animation in the Composition Panel
• Playhead - Current moment in time
• Adding effects from Effects and Presents Panel
• Space bar to start or stop the standard preview, or press play in the preview panel (gives you a gist, a general idea, but often not full speed playback)
• RAM preview [0 on number pad] or arrow button with three vertical bars in preview panel (full real time preview with audio)
• Move frame by frame using [page up and page down, or command right & Left]
• Can click and drag layers horizontally within the timeline
• To see the timeline in greater detail, drag the slider, (tiny to big mountains)
• Can select multiple layers by holding shift and effect them globally
• Animation - Keyframing - Changing Values over Time
• Each layer has a series of settings - open up by clicking triangle
• Open specific layer property with keyboard shortcut (p, s, r, a, t)
• click the Stopwatch to begin adding keyframes (subsequent changes to properties will add a keyframe at the current time)
• Can jump between keyframes [J or K]
• BE SURE you are directly on a key frame when you change the value, it is very easy and common to put a new keyframe directly next to the one you are trying to change.
• Adding a new one manually by clicking the diamond
• Clicking the stopwatch again will delete ALL keyframes for that property
• Manipulating properties directly in by dragging elements within the composition panel.
• Rendering - output to quicktime file - Render Queue
• Docking Panels, Drop Zones, and customizing AE layout
• Nesting Composition within other Compositions - Pre-Compose [command - shift - C]
• Parenting Layers - hierarchies of layers effecting other layers - using the Pickwhip
• ** Easy Ease **
• Puppet tool