During these lessons you’ve learned the importance of using Adobe After Effects and how it is a powerful tool when teaching you about video editing. Over the passed few weeks KidLit TV has covered the highlights of the program and has taught you the basics to get you prepared for a video editing project.
Do you remember what we learned in each chapter? Are you a follower of the series or a video editing beginner? If so let’s take this time to review what we’ve learned.
Chapter One – Basic Tips for Beginners
In the first tutorial we learned that After Effects is a challenging program to use, but it isn’t impossible to use. At first the KidLit TV team recommended a few of the best tutorials that we thought were the best on the Internet. These included:
- LEARN AFTER EFFECTS IN 20 MINUTES! – Tutorial for beginners
- How to Get Started with Adobe After Effects CC – 10 Things Beginners Want to Know How To Do
- Tutorials by Surfaced Studio
We also said to visit the Creative COW website where you can browse for all different kinds of AE tutorials and be introduced to a wide range of features!
In this tutorial we discovered the 5 steps of beginning your project. Do you remember what those 5 steps were?
Think about what kind of work you’ll be doing.
There are millions of possibilities you can conduct:
- 2D and 3D animations
- Create your own effects or choose from a wide range of free effects
- Render in 1080p (high definition) and create Hollywood-like home videos
Take the time to think about what your project needs to focus on and take your time.
Keeping Your Project Organized
One tip to keep After Effects organized is to keep your files stored in bins and name each bin after categories. These include:
- The Audio Bin:
- Music
- SFX (Sound Effects)
- VO (Voice Over)
- The Footage Bin:
- All project footage goes into here whether it’s Raw, Movie, Television, Etc. Within it can be a subfolder named Stills for titles, adjustment layers, logos, motion graphics, stills, etc.
- Reference Bin:
- This can be where you store reference projects, photos or even tutorials to keep up-to-date with your project.
Familiarize with terms:
Visit this website to memorize videography terminology.
Learn Keyboard Shortcuts:
. Here’s a link for a complete list of After Effects Shortcuts.
Chapter Two – The Anatomy of After Effects
In chapter two we finally moved onto the editing process. We learned more about organizational skills, how to create and edit compositions, how to import footage into After Effects and the importance of layers.
Chapter Three – The Basics of Video Editing
This chapter was when everyone began their video editing projects. We talked about rendering your projects, the awesome video effects included in After Effects, how to preview your project and text layers. We also threw in a few video editing prompts!
Chapter Four – The Basics of Video Editing Part II
We continued the basics of video editing in this tutorial and talked all about layers, the types of layers and anchor points. This was a fun, easy to follow along tutorial about character animation and introduced new features to first time After Effects users.
Chapter Five – You are the Puppet Master with Character Animation
This was when KidLit TV really got the ball rolling! We discussed how to animate in After Effects by using the wonderful Puppet Tool and many different effects to make your characters come to life.
Chapter Six – Typography
In the final lesson we reviewed Typography (text effects) and learned how to make animated text or book trailers. This was discussed in earlier chapters, but it were here when we took Typography animation to the next level.
The Finale
We’ve saved the best for last! As the seventh and final Adobe After Effects tutorial for beginners, here we will be providing you with plug-ins for your Adobe After Effects to make your video editing experience a fun and enjoyable one.
Increase your productivity, uniqueness and quality with the Sapphire Plug-in. You can control the look of your processed images, render speed with organic and natural-looking results.
This is a one-of-a-kind visual effects plug-in that includes physics-based particles, fluids, fire, smoke and other natural phenomena. A huge selection of artistic effects are also included for you to browse through.
ParticleIllusion is a customization of hundreds of effects from simple to complex. Included are sparkles and smoke, geometric shapes and motion graphics, magic effects and explosions and anything else you can imagine.
This plug-in includes powerful looks and color correction that’s easy to use for any filmmaker.
After Effects is a complex program, but it is fun to use and extremely powerful. Anyone can use After Effects and learn to master its amazing abilities. All you have to do is keep on practicing and never give up.
We hope you enjoyed this series and want you to know that we’ll be focusing on After Effects for many articles to come. Maybe we’ll teach you how to put together a book trailer or how to make your text walk around the screen. Anything is possible.
To add your request to the bundle of After Effects tutorials visit:
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