Introduction to After Effects Tutorial / 20 Effects Filters Exercise

Hello Students,

Motion Graphics is a technique that is used to bring graphics, animation and 3D content to life. It is used in commercials, production, movies, animation and more. From the most complicated animated feature film to a simple logo animation, motion graphics makes it happen.

Tutorials - After Effects for Beginners:

Read and work through these tutorials to gain an in-depth understanding of the After Effects workflow. Don't skip any steps or skim over the material, read each and every paragraph and try out the steps yourself. Be thorough, you will be calling on these skills for the next assignment. Work through all, from intermediate to advanced.

• Getting Started 
• Effects and Animation
• Advanced Techniques

Motion Graphics can blur the line between video, art and animation

20 Different AE Effects Assignment Details:

• Find a short clip from one of your previous projects, output a 3-5 second clip of video from Final Cut. Use the Export > Quicktime function for best results.
• Launch Adobe After Effects
• Go to File > Import > Files and navigate to your clip
• Drag your clip into the timeline and set up a composition
• Explore the Effects menu, pick one while your clip is selected in the timeline to apply that effect
• You can use Command-D to duplicate a clip, you can also Option-ClickDrag to make a copy.
• Use the Text Tool to create a text object and type in the name of the Effect, shorten the Text Objects Layer in the Timeline so it only appears for that specific clip. Repeat for each clip.
• Apply 20 different Effects to 20 different clips... explore the effects palette to modify the Effect's parameters. 
• When done, set up your in/out markers and use Command-Control-M to "Make" a movie. You will see the Render Que... hit the Render button to save your movie.
• Transfer your movie to my laptop via thumbdrive to turn it in
• Files are due before end of class monday

Grading for a total of 10 points:

2.5 Points - All 20 clips created with effects

2.5 Points - Effects have labels

2.5 Points - Quicktime movie turned in and is proper video format

2.5 Points - File turned in on time

AE Effects Samples:

Have Fun!

 - Mr.W

Traditional Animation Origins: Thaumatropes and Phenakistoscopes

Hello Students,

Your next module is a physical exercise in creating examples of the earliest forms of animation. This module will create an understanding the illusion that makes animation possible, this is called "Persistence of Vision".

Animation History Project 1: Creating a Thaumatrope

• Make a thaumatrope using the materials available
• Think of an interesting 2-frame animation idea and create a handmade thaumatrope device, it can be created digitally and printed out or by drawn by hand
• You will turn in a physical example of your thaumatrope.
• Due at end of class today!

Animation History Project 2: Creating a Phenakistoscope

• Create a phenakistoscope using the materials available
• Follow the lesson details outlined in the CTEOnline curriculum for creating a "Spindle Viewer". This lesson contains a template which may be printed and used
• Think of an interesting 16 frame animation, it should be able to loop seamlessly if you are successful
• Your animation can be drawn by hand, created digitally or with photographs, your imagination and skill level is the only limit
• You will turn in a physical example if your phenakistoscope along with an animated GIF file of your phenakistoscope. We will learn how to make animated GIF's with Photoshop before you turn it in.

Links:

History of Phenakistoscope

Animated Cyclist Phenakistoscope Example

Phenakistoscope Instructions

1. Obtain or print up a copy of the phenakistoscope template
2. Sketch your animation very lightly in pencil, make sure to keep your artwork consistent and evenly spaced for best results. Make sure the scale of your characters or artwork is consistent.
3. Spin your template for a quick preview of what your animation will look like, adjust lines or artwork if needed
4. Once the artwork is complete, ink the sketched artwork with a dark pen. Felt tip pens are best but any will work. Make sure the lines are bold and easy to see for best results.
5. Scan your template with the scanner and transfer to your computer
6. Open your scanned image with adobe photoshop
7. Create a new layer and set the blending mode to darken. On this layer paint color over your artwork with a brush/pencil tool. The blending mode "darken" will allow your line art to show through the color you added
8. When the color layer is complete flatten your image to make the color and artwork into a single layer. Save a copy of this to preserve your original layered file.
9. Open your flattened image and open the animation palette in photoshop, set the palette to work in frame mode.
10. Create 16 layers of your template, rotating each layer so that it is aligned and ready for animation
11. In the animation palette sub menu, select "make frames from layers" and your layers will be cast across the timeline in the animation palette
12. Adjust your duration and delete any frames that don't belong.
13. Hit the play button to see your animation, adjust speed/duration if necassary
14. Export a GIF files to make an animated web safe file
15. Make sure the GIF looks good and is set to loop "forever"
16. Make sure you add your first and last name to the file and turn it into my external hard drive or copy to my laptop.

Due by end of class Monday

Have fun! - Mr.W

Thank You Video Production and Animation Students of 2015-16

Thank you to all of my wonderful ROP Video Production students! Good luck to you all. - Mr.W

This class will become active again in the fall semester 2016

End Of Course Survey

Hello Students,

ROP uses a course survey at the end of a class to gather information and receive feedback about our courses and class material. This information is used to provide evidence of the course work, student achievement and relevancy of our curriculum in ROP classes. This information ensures funding and helps to ensure that ROP classes continue to be offered to future High School students.

Please click this link and complete the survey: Mid-Year Course Survey for ROP

Thank you for your participation!

 - Mr.W

Video Production and Animation Final: Demo Reel and ROP Print Portfolio

Students,
As part of your final you will produce a high energy demo reel that showcases your work during the semester. You will also complete your ROP print portfolio. Both of these items are due on the 18th.

Demo Reel Project:

Having a compelling demo reel is a key component in communicating your talents and digital media skills to potential employers and clients. You final project is to create a demo reel that showcases your skills. Read: Pixars tips on creating a demo reel

• Choose a short and high energy piece of music to edit your demo reel to, make sure you have this ready before you begin editing
• Launch Adobe Premiere and begin adding all of your rendered animation assets and video projects from the semester (work from other classes or prior semesters/independent work is allowed)
• Create an intro slide plus an ending title slide with your name and email address
• Edit your slides, images, animations and videos to your music, make sure to edit on the beat of your music track to keep it compelling
• Demo reel music and action should crescendo towards the end
• Keep the demo reel down to 1 minute or 1:30 approximately
• Include tails and 2-pop
• Turn in via NAS or SNET in full HD H.264 with 10Mbps Data Rate

ROP Print Portfolio Project:

Having a polished and professional looking portfolio is key to your success in finding work after High School and moving on to developing a career. Download the ROP Portfolio Handbook to use as a guide for creating your own portfolio, a requirement in all ROP classes.

Portfolio's are due by the end of the semester and must be ready for presentation, evaluation and critique. You will complete a digital version as a PDF file for evaluation. Class winner will be able to print and prepare their portfolio for inclusion in the Portfolio Showcase competition. This portfolio is part of your final grade.

Remember that the best portfolio in class will be sent to the portfolio design competition that ROP has at the end of each school year, your portfolio will compete against other graphic design classes across the county, and there are prizes!

A judge evaluates print portfolio's from past entrants...

Portfolio Development Assignment:

• Your portfolio must be created in Indesign and the final file must be a multi-page PDF document
• Use the Pages palette to create multiple pages for your portfolio with Indesign
• Your portfolio cover, table of contents and all materials should look clean and consistent. Use consistent design style across all aspects of your portfolio, this includes color, typography, layout and style

Your Portfolio must contain in this order: See portfolio handbook for more details...

1. Cover page with your name, class title, year. Spend some time on this, it should show good design skill and be reflective of your personality
2. Table of contents
3. Letter of Introduction
4. Resume
5. Handwritten Job Application 
6. List of References
7. Letter of Recommendation -  cannot be from your ROP teacher or a family member
8. 3 or more work samples with written explanation about the work, why is it important to your career choice? What did the project entail, what were the challenges and difficulties? Give us details.

How Your Portfolio Is Evaluated:

• Contains required content and format
• Well organized
• Free of grammer problems
• ROP related work samples
• Shows creativity
• Nice appearance
• Shows skill development
• Appropriate for use in job search
• Professional appearance
• Nice presentation

A print portfolio can take many forms, it can be professionally bound, stitched by hand or bound with a spiral ring... how will you create your portfolio, what will make it stand out above the rest?

Tips For Winning The Portfolio Competition:

In the last few years the portfolio competition has gotten fierce, especially for the graphic design category. Other schools have printing facilities that we don't, so you must use your creativity, ingenuity and eye for design to stand above the rest. Consider purchasing a large format portfolio binder and printing work samples at 11X17", or consider making a hand-bound book format to showcase your work. The limits are only contained by your creativity!

Use this as a rough guide to laying out your own portfolio...

Ok, have fun!

Student Portfolio Design Samples:

New Project: Documentary Short

Hello Students,

Documentaries are a great way to inform and delight the viewer. It can be a view into worlds that we rarely see. If you have access to someone unique, a place people don’t normally get to see or if you want to share a unique perspective than this is a great opportunity to share those things with the world. When shooting your documentary the idea is to shoot as much footage as you can, and weave it into something informative and entertaining through editing and timing. The goal should be a good story that is factual, informative and entertaining all at the same time. 

Documentary Project

Project Details and Requirements:

• This can be a team or solo project
• Final run time must be 3-5 minutes minimum, 10-15 minutes maximum
• Each project must have a creative animated title sequence, this animation may be created in After Effects as motion graphics or created by hand as animation or stop motion, etc...
• Must have a 2pop and tails at beginning and end: 3 seconds of padding, show production logos, title logos and credits at the end, followed by 3 seconds of padding at the end.
• Each team must produce and use a production logo in the beginning of their documentary
• Each team must produce a 1 page film proposal for approval. Upon approval a script or treatment must be written along with a storyboard or shot list.
• Each team must screen a rough cut and a fine cut for feedback before turning in final version.
• Each team must produce a press kit to document and promote your video project. Guidelines for the press kit are contained in the packet. Details are listed below

Schedule

Filmmakers must meet these deadlines for full credit:

• Nov 18: Proposals Due
• Dec 2: Preliminary Filming Complete
• Dec 7: Rough Edit Ready for Review and Feedback
• Dec 11: Final Edit Ready for Review and Feedback
• Dec 16: Final Edit turned in complete with Press Kit and all required deliverables

Treatments for Documentaries: 

Since most documentaries and experimental films do not have scripts, they frequently use the treatment to summarize their project. The treatment for an experimental film should express what the audience is going to see, hear and feel – it should be clear and descriptive. The treatment for a documentary may be less descriptive because much of the information (the interview, for example) may not have been filmed yet: documentary treatments typically spend more time establishing the conditions of filming and the questions the filmmaker intends to address. Nonetheless, a documentary treatment should also establish what the film is going to look like and sound like to best of the director’s knowledge. It should present the issues and information to be investigated and what new perspectives the viewers may experience through the documentary film.

New Line Cinema Production Logo

Biographies,Press Kits and Logos: 

Each filmmaking team is responsible for assembling a press kit and writing the biography for their film. These materials are used to distribute the project to film festivals and for publicity.

Biography:

A biography is a brief, third-person description of the filmmaker(s). Information that is typically included in a biography includes: place of birth, place of residence, educational background, past projects, current projects, areas of interest.

A sample biography:

Jason Jakaitis is a filmmaking student at San Francisco State University and a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Master of Arts program in Communications Studies. Born and raised in San Diego, he currently lives in the Upper Haight area of San Francisco. In 2007, Jason was awarded a Murphy Fellowship from the San Francisco Foundation, as well as a Personal Works grant from Film Arts Foundation and a New Filmmaker grant from Panavision. Jason's previous film, minutiae, is a 16mm narrative short that was awarded Special Jury Prize at the Portland International Short Short Film Festival, and screened at the 2007 Mill Valley, Humboldt and Santa Cruz film festivals.

Logos

Your team must produce a logo for your “production company”. This can be drawn by hand, created in photoshop or illustrator. It could be a still image, or even animated.

Press Kit:

Depending on the project, press kits can be composed of a variety of different kinds of information, but the overall goal of the kit is always the same: to provide the individual with as much relevant information about the film as possible. This information can then be used in articles, in film festival schedules, online “blurbs” and any other way that a festival would choose to promote the film.

Check out this link: How To Make A Press Kit for your Indie Movie

Download and read a real press kit: Press Kit for  the film Some Kind Of Wonderful

Check out this press kit: Quivir Press Kit
Check out this press kit: Cave of Forgotten Dreams Press Kit

Press Kits require the following: 

• Two or more still images from the film itself 
• Two behind the scenes production stills taken with a camera, cell phone cam, ipod camera, point and shoot, etc 
• One “headshot” photo of the director or filmmaker(s)
• A one paragraph (3-4 sentence) synopsis of the film
• A one paragraph biography of each filmmaker 
• You can assemble your press kit using google docs, pages or word, indesign, photoshop or illustrator and turn it in as a PDF file

Behind the Scenes Production Still from Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"

Production Still from Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"

Good luck Filmmakers!

- Mr.W

How to Write a Good GREAT Letter of Introduction

Hello Students,

Your next assignment is to create a "Letter of Introduction" that describes you! Your special traits, qualities, hobbies, and personal, educational and career goals. List your top 5 skills and abilities. It should consist of at least one page. Make sure to use correct spelling and grammar.

Letter of Introduction Assignment:

• Must have same name/contact info formatting and font as your resume/references
• This is an introduction letter, about you, written to people that may be viewing your portfolio
• Should be about 1 page long

You letter should include:

• Who you are
• Where you are currently attending school
• What courses you are currently enrolled in aside from standard courses (such as this ROP class your in right now)
• Your top 5 work related skills
• Special acknowledgments from employers/instructors
• Future education plans
• Hobbies or other activities you enjoy
• Discuss what is contained in your portfolio
• Discuss the type of work/projects/activities you enjoy the most in school

Sample Introduction Letter:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Star

242 Crest St.

Capitola, CA 95010

(831) 553-2323

jostar@yahoo.com

Date

To Whom It May Concern:

I am currently attending Soquel High School where I will be graduating this year in June. I have enrolled in ROP classes, which are business-oriented. ROP classes have given me a closer look at the business world and I have learned excellent work skills. 

My top five work skills are:

• Excellent communication skills with strong listening skills
• Responsible and reliable with attention to detail
• Strong team player who thrives in teamwork situations
• Good computer skills
• Excellent time management skills

I have received special acknowledgement from my employers for strong skills and work ethics.

I recently was accepted to CalPoly and plan to go there in the Fall and pursue a degree in Agribusiness. After receiving my degree, I plan to work in my family’s strawberry farming business. Eventually, I hope to be the president of the business. I have many hobbies including surfing, skiing and playing baseball but most of all, I enjoy riding my horse up in the hills. It gives me a sense of freedom and independence.

My portfolio shows some of the skills and abilities I have acquired in while attending Soquel High School and throughout my work experience. I have always enjoyed landscaping and have enrolled in the Horticulture class for my last semester of high school. From my past experience you will notice that I enjoy working especially when I leave the job better than it was when I first got there. I have been doing tree work for three years and have worked for commercial and residential customers. Thoroughness and safety are some of my favorite qualities.

Included in this portfolio, is my resume summarizing my schooling, work experience, and skills. In addition I have a list of references, letters of recommendation, and samples of my work. I hope you enjoy reviewing my portfolio.

Sincerely,

John Star

Due by Thursday!

 - Mr.W