Elstree Film School - The Magic of Adobe After Effects Training Course

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.

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.

Location: Elstree Film School, 21st Century New Media Ltd, Elstree Film Studios, Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, WD6 1JG. [Click here for a map]

Times: 10.00am to 4.30pm. For security reasons, further details are only provided upon booking.

Software Versions: All of our Adobe courses include lessons generic to both CS3 and CS4 versions of the Adobe suite: whichever version you use is covered in our courses. In addition, we also now preview the functionality of the new Adobe CS5 software. Our Apple training courses utilise the latest versions of Final Cut Studio HD (also known of as version 3 or FCS 2009).

Equipment: Our fully featured training room includes six top-of-the-range iMac computers configured to work in both Macintosh (OSX) and PC (Windows) modes, ensuring you the maximum familiarity with your chosen operating system.

Accommodation: Details of local accomodation can be found here.

Further assistance: Our FAQ help page contains the answers to many popular questions. Alternatively please call 0844 844 2428 to arrange to speak to our training manager.

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

Adobe After Effects Training Courses
Date	Days	Total (Excl VAT)
November 2011
1/11/11	1	250
29/11/11	1	250
January 2012
10/1/12	1	250
March 2012
20/3/12	1	250

Email Notifications
If you cannot make any of the dates above, you can also register with us to be notified when future courses in this subject are planned by filling in the following form.
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