Introduction

Adobe After Effects^® is a powerful multimedia program that is used to create animations, television graphics, Web graphics and even special effects for TV and movies. It combines aspects of Photoshop, animation programs and video editing programs. And it's an essential tool in mass media today. In this exercise, students will be introduced to the program and try it out through the creation of a simple television graphics piece. Those interested in learning more about After Effects are encouraged to take COMM 491, Advanced Video Editing.

Assignment

You will be provided with the materials and instructions to create a simple motion graphics piece with After Effects—the opening titles of a fictional television show.

Procedure

1. Make sure you have the video samples (on the Data HD, look for the editExercise folder; it's the same folder you used in the Edit to Audio exercise). If you don't have them, you can get them from me. You will also need this folder. Download it and unzip. It contains an additional piece of footage (timeElement5.mov) and a piece of music. The song, Faster Does It, is by Kevin MacLeod, and can be found on his royalty free music Web site. Move the files to the Data HD.
2. Launch After Effects (the "AE" in the dock).

3. Create a new project and save it as yourName-AE-exercise.

4. Import the editExercise folder, timeElement5.mov and the song.
5. Go to Composition and choose New Composition. In the window that opens choose the following options:
   • For Composition Name, write TV Title exercise
   • For Preset choose NTSC DV.
   • Set the Duration to 40 seconds (00;00;40;00).
   • Click OK.
6. In the Project window, select timeElement5.mov. In the lower- left-hand corner of the window press the Interpret Footage button ; a new window will open. Towards the bottom of this Interpret Footage window, look for Loop and set it to loop 4 times (the clip is 10 seconds long, this will extend it to 40 seconds). Press OK.

7. Add footage to the timeline:
   1. Drag the timeElement5.mov clip into the layer/timeline window.
   2. Choose 5 clips from the editExercise folder and add them to the composition by dragging them into the layer/timeline window as well. Make sure the timeElement5.mov clip is on the bottom. Note: the clips you choose should be at least 10 seconds long.
   3. Select the text tool and click on the Composition window. Write Once Upon a Time. Use the Character and Paragraph windows to choose a typeface, style, size, etc. I'd recommend making the text white with a black outline (make sure you choose Fill over shade for the outline, the the lines don't eat-into the letters). Size the text so that it fits on screen (you can use a return to put the text on two lines). Note that when you add type to the composition, After Effects puts it on its own layer.
8. Set the layer properties:
   1. Temporarily hide all of the layers except one of the editExercise clips. You can hide the layers by pressing on the "eyeball" switches in the layer window .
   2. Make sure the playhead (the vertical red line in the timeline with the yellow pointy thing at the top ) is all the way to the left edge of the timeline (at 0 seconds).
   3. In the visible layer, click on the triangle spin-down switch to make the properties visible. Open the Transform properties (you should see Anchor point, Position, Scale, Rotation and Opacity listed).
   4. Next to each of the properties you should see a little stop-watch icon . Click on the stop-watches next to Scale and Position to activate the keyframes. This will cause little yellow diamonds appear in the timeline —these are the keyframes .
   5. Next to the word Scale you should see 100.0, 100.0%. Change these to read 60.0, 60.0%. You'll see the clip in the composition window shrink in size (to 60% of it's original size).
   6. Next to the word Position, you should see the numbers 360.0, 240.0 (or something pretty close to that). This is the position of the clip's x (horizontal) and y (vertical) coordinates. Change the first number (x) to read 950. Note that the clip moves off-stage to the right.
   7. Select the layer (click on the layer in the layer/timeline window) and choose Layer > Layer Styles > Stroke. You should also see a new properties section that says "Layer Styles." Below that you should be able to find "Stroke." Spin that open to see the stroke settings. Note that these have little stop-watches next to them as well. Click the watches next to Color, Size, and Position. Then change the color to white (if it's not already), the size to 5.0 (pixels) and the position to "Inside." Of course, you can't see the stroke yet, because the clip is off-stage. But we'll bring it back shortly.
9. Now we're going to animate the clip, cause it move move across the screen:
   1. Move the playhead to 10 seconds in the timeline (00;00;10;00).
   2. Find the layer's position property. Change the x value (currently 950) to -220.0. Note how the clip moves across the stage to the left, to it's new position, leaving a dotted white line in its wake. This is its motion path. If you scrub (drag) the playhead back and forth you can watch the clip move left and right.
10. Now we need to get the other clips moving. To do this we're going to copy and paste the keyframes we've already created:
    1. Make sure all of the properties under your animated layer are visible (you should see five keyframes at 0 seconds and one more at 10 seconds). Click and drag around all of the keyframes to select them (they should turn yellow). You can also shift-click on them one at a time to select them if you prefer.
    2. Choose Edit > Copy (or press command-c).
    3. Make sure the playhead is at 0 seconds again. Hide the layer we just animated, and reveal a new footage layer (not the text layer nor timeElement5).
    4. Select this new layer and open its properties. Choose Edit > Paste (command-V). The keyframes should appear on this layer. It should now be smaller and move just like the first layer.
    5. Repeat the steps above for the rest of the footage layers except timeElement5 and the text. We want timeElement5 to stay full-size. The text we'll animate in a few steps.
11. Now all of the footage layers move, but they all move at the same time, on top of one another. That doesn't do us any good; we need to space them out so we can watch them all:
    

    Footage layers staggered five seconds apart

    1. Close all of the property sections so that only the main layers are visible. Notice that in the timeline there are a series of blue bars; these are the layer duration bars, and they show the starting and ending point of each layer. Right now each layer starts at 0 seconds; we're going to stagger them so that they start at 10 second intervals.
    2. Select your second footage layer. Drag the blue duration bar to the right until the left edge is lined-up with 5 seconds (5s). Don't worry about the right edge. If you drag the playhead now, you'll see that the second clip follows the first.
    3. Select the third clip, and drag its duration bar to the right until the left edge is at 10 seconds. Drag the forth clip to 15 seconds, and the fifth clip to 20 seconds. All of the footage clips should now be visible as they follow one another across the screen.
12. For the text, we'll cause it to fade in and out:
    

    Text layer positioned from 30 seconds to 40 seconds

    1. Drag the text duration bar (likely red) so that it starts at 30 seconds. Drag the right end of the bar to lengthen it. Drag it out so that it ends at 40 seconds.
    2. Now spin down the properties section for the text layer. Place the playhead at 30 seconds and press the stop-watch button next to Opacity to turn-on the keyframes. Change the value to 0% (the text will vanish).
    3. Move the playhead to 33 seconds. To add a new keyframe don't press the stop-watch. Instead, press the diamond-shaped button on the far left edge of the property layer. A new keyframe should appear in the timeline. Change the opacity setting to 100%.
    4. Move the playhead to 37 seconds. Add another keyframe. Don't change the opacity setting.
    5. Move the playhead to 40 seconds. Add a keyframe. Change the opacity to 0% again. Now the text fades in and fades out.
13. Let's fade the timeElement5 layer also. Open its properties and add opacity keyframes at 0, 2, 38, and 40 seconds. Set the opacity at 0 and 40 to 0%. Make sure it's at 100% at 2 and 38 seconds. Now the timeElement5 layer should fade in and out.
14. Finally, lets add some music:
    1. Drag the song (Faster Does It) into the layer window. It doesn't matter where you but it; I typically put music at the very top or bottom.
    2. Spin open the music layer's properties section and you'll note that it's a bit different; it says Audio, not Transform. Spin open Audio and find the Audio Levels property. We want the song to fade-out at the end like the footage. Move the playhead to 38 seconds and press the stop-watch to set a keyframe.
    3. Move the playhead to 40 seconds. Add a keyframe and drop the Audio Levels to -48db.
    4. If you try to play the movie you won't hear the music. To hear audio, we need to build a RAM preview. Press the RAM Preview button in the Preview panel. It will build a preview (which may take a few minutes), then play back the movie with sound. Note that you can speed-up the preview process if you lower the quality (at the bottom of the composition window is a button that says Full. Change this to third or quarter for faster playback).
15. Make sure you save your work!

Output

Once the project is done, the next step is to output it to a format that can be easily viewed.

1. Select the composition tab in the layers/timeline window.
2. Choose Composition > Make Movie
3. In the dialog box that pops open name the file yourName_AE-exercise. Save it to the Data HD (or your own hard drive).
4. The Render Queue should appear over the top of the timeline. Press the orange link that says Best Settings . This will open a dialog box. Choose the following options:
   • For Quality select Best.
   • For Resolution choose Full.
   • For Time Span (near the bottom) choose Length of Comp.
   • Click OK
5. Now press the orange link that says Lossless. In this dialog box choose the following:
   • For Format choose H.264
   • At the very bottom of the window, make sure Audio Output is checked (otherwise your movie will have no sound).
   • Click OK
6. Back in the Render Queue press the Render button. It will take a few minutes (at least) to render.
7. When AE has finished rendering, locate the MP4 file on the Data HD and turn it in (NOT THE AE FILE!!)

Specifications:

• Format: NTSC DV (SD)
• Resolution: 720 x 480
• Frame Rate: 29.97
• Length: 40 seconds
• Due Date: Week 7
• Deliverables: rendered mp4 file

Grading rubric