ANM108P Reviewer

Introduction To After Effects

After effects – industry standard motion graphics and visual effects software used to
create cinematic movie titles, intros and transitions. It is also used to animate a logo or character,
or even navigate and design a 3D space.
5 Parts of After effects
- Menu Bar – Shows the file, edit, composition and other menus that give you access to a
variety of commands, adjustments and panels.

- Active Panel – Are highlighted by blue.

- Tools Panel - contains tools for adding and editing elements in your compositions.
Similar tools are grouped together. You can access related tools in a group by clicking
and holding a tool in the panel.

- Project Panel - is the area where you import, search, and organize assets in your After
Effects projects. In the bottom of the panel you can create new folders and compositions
as well as change item and project settings.

- Composition Panel - is a viewport showing the currently loaded composition.

Compositions contain one or more layers of video and or graphic elements stacked in the
timeline.

- Timeline – displays layers of the currently loaded composition.

System Requirements for Windows OS

Keyboard Shortcuts for After Effects
Introduction to Motion Graphics
Motion Graphics – Means “Graphics in Movement” , also called motion design making
the relationship between movement and design elements easier to understand. It is about bringing
the design knowledge to new mediums by adding the elements of time and space to it
- Is any graphics that use technology to create an illusion of motion, transformation, or
rotation in order to communicate messages through video and audio storytelling.

- Includes things such as films videos animated texts and web-based animation, among
other things and the field has quickly evolved as a direct result of improvements in
technology.
Uses/Examples of Motion Graphics
- Gifs - are one of the most popular and creative forms of motion graphics. GIFs are a
series of images or soundless videos that loop continuously.

- Logo Animation (animated logo) - simply takes your logo and adds motion graphics or
animation to your design.
 - Animated icon control - plays animated images in response to user interaction and
visual state changes. Animated icons can draw attention to a UI component, such as the
next button in a tutorial, or simply reflect the action associated with the icon in an
entertaining and interesting way.

- UI Animation or user face animation - adds visual effects to UI elements and

components to make them interactive. This interactivity helps guide users through a
website or digital product while creating an immersive and enjoyable user experience.

- Explainer Videos - are short and digestible pieces of video content that tell viewers how
your product works.

- Infographic Video – is a video that uses animation and graphics to illustrate information
and/or data.

- Video titles - One of the most common uses of graphics is to make video titles. Before
starting a movie or other videos, the title is shown with the help of motion graphics. It is
created to impress the audience and make it look more attractive. The text is animated
along with apiece of background music which is a common style of the title card.

- Title Sequence - presents the name of the work and a list of the people involved
increasing it. Typically appearing in the first minutes of a film or video, these sequences
set the tone and entice viewers to keep watching.

- Teaser Video - is a versatile visual tool that you can use to create anticipation, spread
awareness, or hype up a new product or offering. Think of it as a mini-preview — short
and sweet, without giving too much away.\

History of Motion Graphics

Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968)
- In 1926, together with Man Ray and Marc Allegrat, Duchamp filmed an experimental
film named Anemic Cinema

- As part of Duchamp’s spinning works, rotoreliefs (whirling animated drawings) were

painted on flat cardboard circles and spun on a phonograph turntable. When the disks
were spinning, they appeared to be 3-dimensional.

Walter Ruttman (1887 – 1942)

- Ruttman was a German film director who worked main in experimental film
- He started his career in the early 1920’s starting with abstract films: Lichtspiel: opus I
(1921), the first publicly screened abstract film. And opus II (1923)

- The films were experiments in new forms of film expression and featured shapes of
different colors flowing back and forth and in and out of the lens

Fernand Leger (1882 – 1955)

- Fernand Leger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker who was regarded as a
forerunner of pop art.

- In 1924, Leger co-directed the iconic and Futurism-influenced Le Ballet Mecanique with
filmmaker Dudley Murphy. It included a series of images of a woman’s lips and teeth,
close-up shots of ordinary objects, and repeated images of human activities and rhythmic
machines.

Saul Bass (1920 – 1996)

- Saul Bass stands out as the name of the leading innovator in the domain of film titles.

- Although he had a memorable career as a graphic designer, his film titling work and
poster design is what really made him stand out.

- Some noteworthy title sequences he created were for films such as The Man With The
Golden Arm (1955), Psycho (1960), Good fellas(1990), and Casino (1995).

John Whitney (1917 – 1995)

- John Whitney is considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation.

- In 1960, he was one of the first to use the term “motion graphics” when he founded
Motion Graphics, Inc., in order to create motion picture and television title sequences
through his own mechanical analogue computer invention.

- One of his most famous works was the animated title sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s
film “Vertigo” in 1958, collaborating with Saul Bass.

Stan Brakhage (1933 – 2003)

- Stan Brakhage is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century
experimental film.

- He explored a variety of formats, creating a large, diverse body of work. Some of his
approaches and techniques included handheld camerawork, painting directly onto
 celluloid, fast cutting, in-camera editing, scratching on film, collage film, and the use of
multiple exposures.

Pablo Ferro (1935-)

- An American graphic designer and film titles designer, Pablo Ferro was a pioneer of
quick-cut editing and multiple screen images animation.

- Winning over 70 national and international awards, his work is featured in popular films
such as Philadelphia, Beetlejuice, Men in Black, and A Clockwork Orange.

Norman McLaren (1914 – 1987)

- As an animator and filmmaker, Norman McLaren was a pioneer in a number of areas of
animation and filmmaking, including drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract
film, pixilation and graphical sound.

- He developed a number of groundbreaking techniques for combining and synchronizing

animation with music.

Kyle Cooper (1962-)

- One of today’s major players in the motion graphics industry, Kyle Cooper is an
American designer of motion picture title sequences.

- His work for the title sequence of Seven (with influences from Stan Brakhage) really
raised the bar creatively, and you can see his work in other popular films such as the
Spiderman Trilogy (2002, 2004, 2007), Sherlock Holmes(2009), and in popular TV
shows including The Walking Dead (2010) and American Horror Story (2011.)