AFTER EFFECTS BASICS:

• Firstly, this tutorial shows different panels of After Effect interface and explain their functions, such as the timeline, workspace, file storage, effects, composition window, and toolbar.
• Next, it introduces some basic operations, such as importing files into the project panel area and dragging files under composition panel area.
• Besides, he also shows the way to adjust the order of the item on position and timeline.
• Then he talks about the method to make a movement/animation for items, which is using keyframes and spotwatch.
• In addition, he shows various layers and their effects.

Learning Aftereffect from the example:

• For After Effect, it doesn’t render in the real-time, which Premiere Pro does. Thus, it is better to drop the quality of footages can allow us to play back and check the effect.
• At the beginning of the example, he presents how to mark the in and out points. It is kinda like the same as Premiere Pro. To make the production process easier, adjust the time like to match up with the required clip and click the Trim Comp to Work Area, which is in Composition list.

• Next, he shows how to ‘track’ the title. In order to achieve the effect, a null object is necessary to use. Just clip the timeline and create a null object then it can show up with the red color. All these layers and its information can be seen in the left panels. The next step is to click the original layer and click Tracker, which can be found in Windows bar. Then, click track motion and a new window comes up. Besides, there is also a track point number 1 box. Both click position and scale are required for this production process. Then we are supposed to click the Edit Target and choose null 1. After setting up well two track points then we can click the analyze point to see if it works well. There are two boxes of one tracking box. The inside box tracks the point and the outside one is more like the backup plan to keep the inside one in. Thus, if the track point doesn’t work well, just adjust the size of two boxes. The last step we need to do is just click the pick whip and link it with the null layer.
• When we learn a method of After Effect, do it a lot of times.

Reference:

Peter McKinnon 2018, AFTER EFFECTs BASICS, Youtube, Canada, viewed 23 August 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHDhSidFhcQ>.