Vignettes

Vignettes are those fancy pants gradients around the edges of the frame in hipsters photographs. They make you look cool and like you know what you’re doing. So let’s fake that in post! There are 3 simple Vignette methods:
1. Using a solid layer and mask
2. Using a Shape layer and a fill
2.a. Calling someone else to do it for you
3. Using a solid layer and the circle effect

I’m sure there are other less simple ways but I think you’ll like these ones. I know I sure do because I use them all the time. I hope you enjoy my terrible instructions on how to make these things happen and if you have any questions just leave them in the comments and I would love to help you out!

Custom Transition

Impress your friends, family, and only moderately appease your producers or clients with these custom transition techniques. I’m just going to be blah blah blahing and showing some of what you’ll be making while I in turn, make terrible transitions based puns and bit gags. Really if you take anything way from this it’s that I really should not be in front of the camera if it can be helped.

Stick around after the break to see what Evan does when the camera is just left on… the results will not surprise you.

Cross Dissolves are weak! You need to step your transition game up son! Get it going with the luma matte and some turbulent noise! Or not, it’s totally cool if you don’t want to but I’m just going to put it out there. If you don’t like it you just put it right back…

Wipe on, wipe off young grasshopper! Sometimes the linear wipe isn’t good enough. You want to use the alpha channel to make some cool stuff? It starts here. Radial wipe? You can do it! Heart wipe? You can do it! Butt wipe? You’re on your own, get out of here.

I’m over here! Now I’m over here! Wow this guy is all over the place with the new camera whip tutorial.

Though the simple version just requires that you plan ahead the important thing is that you can fake it in post even if your DP didn’t think it was a good idea to shake his 10,000$ camera around on set. And they might be right. But then to have the nerve to ask you to do it later when all the filming is done and there is no way to go back and get the shot again well that sir takes some brass ones.

But I digress. Now you can fake it if you need to but I would urge you to do the right thing and plan ahead. Because planning is cool! Or you know what just spontaneously get the shot anyway just for fun so you might use it later.

You know that time when some real jerk walks in front of your shot and ruins your day? Well before you throw your lighting kit at them just remember, you can turn that crisis into an opportunity with this wicked cool transition!

Or you can intentionally do it using people, cars, lamp posts etc to switch from one scene to another as seen in CSI and other such poorly written shows. Does anyone even watch that any more? Guess what, the bad guys did it, and spoiler alert, they get caught!

But here is how to mask out an object and use it in the scene to cover and edit and cover your shame…

Muzzle Flashes

For those who like to shoot each other on video, this one’s for you, Make muzzle flashes,flares, front gun explosions things blam blam! This uses a little null object and some 3d action to make it faster and a little bigger and better.

This technique uses some pieces from the action essentials pack from video copilot but you don’t have you. You could make your own if you want to I suppose, but this is quicker.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll try to help you out.

If you want to see what it looks like head back and look at the ol intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRZRhGsT3KA

Thanks for watching and have a nice day!

Hinged Text Transition

I’ve had a number of requests about how I did parts of the Drama B – Lady in my life motion typography. Here is just one of them.

In this tutorial we will be making text come onto the screen and then opening it up like a door and pushing through it. It gets a little heady at times but bare with me because this technique is very versatile and I’m sure you’ll love it in promos, lyric videos and on a bun with coleslaw.

To watch the whole Drama B video go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5ufKJXW7c
or here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoP9GxCjNK8

Connect with me on the Internets?

Retro Film Look

For that old school, retro, vintage, hipster, film look… look no further. Here we’ll cover how to make that reel to reel home theater experience with jostling frames and the offset effect. We will also treat the footage to look crappy, over exposed, and washed out just like you remember your family time! And as an added bonus, if you watch today you’ll learn some high end expression action to link animation to sound! whoooa! Hold onto your hats because we’re going for a ride… back in time. Hopefully you can warn your future self not to waste time reading this crap!

The expressions mentioned should be copy/pasted as they appear below
For the Audio Amplitude, Both Channels:
linear(effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”), 20, 40, 0, 100)
For the Offset effect creating the motion inked to the audio amplitude null:
[640,(wiggle(8,thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”))[1])]

The original piece can be seen here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOxr94kxCcQ

The show it goes with here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheFamilyofTim

The song you hear in the background is made by truly excellent human being and producer Dan Najm check him out: http://www.youtube.com/user/officialBIGdBEATS

Thanks for watching and have a nice day!

Animating Flouishes

How do you make flourishes, filigree, calligraphic whooshing, and other 10 dollar words for squiggly dos? All you need is after effects, an enjoyment or moderate interest in motion graphics, and the ability to tolerate my voice. Sit back and relax and you’ll be done in no time and be embellishing your text, titles, and mustaches in no time.

For those who need it fast not really that excellent this will teach you the fast way of animating flourishes, filigree, calligraphic whooshing, and whatever else you call squiggly dos.

This effect uses the write on technique with the “stroke” effect. Do you think having “stroke” + “quick & dirty” will help my page rank for this? Can’t hurt right? In for a penny in for a pound I suppose. BOOBS!

This tutorial builds on making flourishes by making something WITH the flourishes. The idea is to combine smaller easy to animate elements into one longer, larger, and more impressive piece without doing much more work. If I could sum up the purpose of After Effects that would be it. Make less work. Did you know that back in the day some poor schmuck had to manually draw special effects onto each frame of this thing called Film Stock? What a world. What a time to be alive. Thankfully we no longer have to suffer those indignities.

This is also a request from http://wwwyoutube.com/Shaf2k8 and if you have an effect or technique you want to learn just let me know and I’ll do my best to help you out.

3D Interface (in your face!)

Learn how put a 3d interface in your scene using only adobe after effects. This is an effect like was seen in Minority Report and other sci-fi movies of similar cheesy quality.

This tutorial covers more how to put the menu and loading elements into a scene and less about the style and composition of the menus. I’m hoping you watch it and post up your own video.

If you get stuck or have questions about this or any After Effect or Motion Graphic VFX just let me know, I’m happy to help.

Enjoy and have a nice day

Swinging Text (Motion Typography Technique)

The swinging Text Tutorial for a motion typography technique in adobe after effects.

In this after effects tutorial you’ll learn about how to make text (typography) swing into place in a scene using 3d layers and manual key frames and parenting. The idea behind the technique is to give the text weight and substance as it enters the scene using overshooting.

If you get stuck or have questions just leave them below in the comments. Chances are someone else is having the same problem and I can only answer the questions I get asked. So ask away.

Also if you end up making something cool share it with me. It’s great to see how folks fair getting through the tutorial and it’s awesome to see what you make.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and have a nice day.
-Evan Abrams