Elstree Film School - The Magic of Adobe After Effects - Scheduled Courses

Adobe After Effects lets you to create stunning and sophisticated motion graphics and visual effects to a professional post production standard for film, video, multimedia, and web. Unleashing the ability to integrate real video onto vector backgrounds, animating Photoshop layers, fully animate images, text and manipulate colour effects, After Effects gives you unlimited creative control. Output in a multitude of formats, including Flash, for use on a plethora of devices whether mobile, film or web and the end result is phenomenal!

This powerful application features ironclad direct integration with Adobe Premiere, Photoshop and Illustrator allowing you to develop your composition using elements of your favourite design suites, to further enhance within After Effects. During this comprehensive course we will provide you with the in-depth knowledge needed to enable you to perform creative and professional web design techniques whilst working on your own material.

Unlike most software tutors we won't simply read from the manual whilst you create something you'll never use again; you will be faced with real world scenarios and important commercial theory for when your producer needs results yesterday, we will show you practical solutions, shortcuts, hints and tips all from expert users whilst you work on your own projects. The techniques you learn can be referred to with ongoing support including where to find the best templates for you to hack and slash into your own creative wonders. Of course you will learn all of the foundation material too including importing and working with layers, masking techniques, rendering effects, animating, editing and delivering video to disc, the web and mobile devices, all taught with reference to how you will use the package.

The Magic of Adobe After Effects sets you up with all the practical and professional knowledge to enhance your skills and efficiency in post production editing and motion graphics creation. Learning the most commercially important aspects you will benefit from new skills, hints, tips and tricks that become second nature over time, adding the ying of solid practical foundation to the yang that is your creative flair!

Duration: 1 day.

Location: 21st Century New Media (Production Offices), Elstree Film Studios, Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire WD6 1JG. [MAP]

Prerequisites: To gain the most from this class students should be familiar with Windows and with the web and its terminology. Some Digital Video and experience of previous Editing suites would be an advantage but not essential.

Why Take This Course? As an aspiring (or established!) creative professional, working knowledge of Adobe CS suites are essential to your advancement and development. Whether you work commercially for a design house, privately or are looking to enhance your personal skill sets with a view to finding a foot in the door, our 2 day After Effects course will embed the skills and professionalism needed to springboard your achievements.

COURSE CONTENT

Introduction

Setting preferences
Setting up a project and planning ahead
Overview of all the windows
Using the tools in the tool palette
Working with vector versus bitmap images

Creating Compositions

Importing and using images from Photoshop (including layers and Alpha channels)
Importing and interpreting video clips
Importing external files as compositions
Understanding keyframes
Mixing footage from different sources
Pre-composing; Nesting compositions to create complex animations
Using The Puppet Tool
Using Clip Notes

Layers & Masks

Layer properties
Working with layers in time and space
Adjustment layers
Animating layer properties over time
Understanding layer masking
Multiple masks and their parameters
Mask animations
Combined masks
Masks from text
Animating Masks - Rotoscoping
Layer Transfer Modes and Track Mattes
Croma keying (green screens)
Colour correction
Time remaping
3D compositing - manipulation layers in 3D space, animating lights & cameras
Parenting - animating layers hierarchically & synchronizing their motion
Expressions - creating live relationships between layer properties

Animation Presets

Text
Backgrounds
Simulations
Transitions

Playback

The RAM playback engine and its parameters
Previewing your work
Using markers
Fine-tuning animations by manually and numerically altering keyframe parameters
Understanding Rendering Order - how After Effects thinks
Understanding and applying Filters and Effects
Using slow motion and variable speed during a clip
Controlling speed, acceleration and deceleration along a motion path

Output

Safe zones, frame rates and compression
Export and output options
Pixel Aspect Ratio settings
Rendering the final output (for output to video and for web playback)
Working with DV/Mini DV/HDV
Use of Rendering templates and efficient use of RAM
Organising large projects
Disk Caching
Output to Macromedia Flash (SWF) - creating animations for Web sites
Enhanced masking - drawing masks in the Comp window; adding Motion Blur to masks

File Format Support

Industry standard formats

Integration

Photoshop, Illustrator & Adobe Bridge

5-20% discount if you book for more than one delegate!
Further discounts are available when booking multiple courses,
Please call our training secretary on 0844 844 2428.

The Magic of Adobe After Effects Training Course
Date	Days	Total (Excl VAT)
July 2008
2/7/08	1	250

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