Learning Adobe After Effects
Driving Question: How Can I Use Adobe After Effects To Create A Polished Video Explaining My Research?
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I decided to learn Adobe AE because I wanted to show my research in a new and different way, and also because I wanted to learn something new. In this project, I edited a video in Adobe AE about my "Diet and Sickness?" project.
THE VISION
The vision for my project was a live-action video with animated clips in between, akin to a crash course video (example on the left). Since I am including some animations, my target audience was mainly people in my age group. However, styling my video in this manner will undoubtedly make it more engaging, and hopefully, reach a larger audience.
Example video, may take a second to load.
Initial Apps
Some initial apps that I tried were Animaker, Powtoon, and Adobe Spark. While these animation apps weren't bad, they were geared more for quick video shorts such as ads, product promotions, or quick explanations. Plus, for Animaker and Powtoon, I had to buy the full version to get access to most features.
Asking Students
I sent an email to the student body to ask about video editing/animating software that I could use for my project.
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Afterwards, I emailed the principal, Julia, and tech support, Nick, to get access.
New Computer
I had to get a better computer to run Adobe After Effects. It requires a minimum of 2 GB of vram and 4GB to run smoothly. My old computer had 128MB of vram; this new computer has 6GB of vram, allowing me run After Effects at high quality.
Evidence
Learning The Layout
Asset Preview
Media Assets
Edit Assets in Composition Panel
View Project/Composition Panel
Timeline
Customizable panel including text options, effect presets, audio effects, animations, etc.
Tools and Menu Bar
Other Options/Search Bar
Adobe Basic Tutorials
Create a new composition
Adobe Tutorial Compositions
Adobe Tutorial Compositions
Keyframe Movement Example (2)
Basic Keyframe Animation: Adobe Tutorial
Easy Ease & Graph Editor: Adobe Tutorial
Adobe After Effects Basics Composition: Adobe Tutorial
I started learning by going through the basic tutorials provided by Adobe After Effects. This taught me the layout, basics of keyframe animation, animation effects, and additional tools
PDF file, may take a second to load
Adobe After Effects Master Class
After going through the Adobe Tutorials, I still didn't feel like I knew enough. I went online and found a masterclass course for 80% off at $16.
This course covered all the basics from the Adobe Tutorials as well as advanced topics such as green screen, masking, rotoscoping, and motion tracking.
Each lesson also had an exercise/activity, resulting in many mini-compositions. I finished all the beginner and intermediate lessons before starting on my final project.
Adobe AE Master Class Compositions
Adobe AE Master Class Compositions
Applying Stretch & Blur Animation Preset
Adjusting Footage and Syncing Audio to Footage
Syncing Footage with Audio
Adding Effects on Shapes
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PDF file, may take a second to load
Final Draft (Excerpt)
PDF file, may take a second to load
YouTube Video, may take a second to load
Final Mini-Reflection
Going into this, I honestly thought that video editing was going to be easy, like dragging a preset effect to a chunk of text to make it do something fancy. I was quickly proven wrong. Every small piece of animation takes so much thought and different moving parts. I remember making my first text box animation took me an hour because I had to create a sound effect, adjust the anchor point, position, height, length, keyframes, text format, and end animation. This definitely taught me perseverance, and overall, I think it was super fun and rewarding. In total, I probably spent a combined ≈ 50 hours of learning time.
Next Steps
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Find template for intro
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Finish draft
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Ask for feedback
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Make revisions
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Send out to the public (most likely school)