If you're editing commercial or corporate projects, you're very likely to encounter the following question from your clients: can you make this edit more visually exciting so that we can portray our company in the most positive light? Although there are many ways to accomplish this feat including quicker cuts, some dynamic graphics, or a color grade that really pops, one extremely quick way is through overlaying animated mattes on top of your footage.

Here's Sean Mullen from Rampant Design Tools to show you just how quick and simple it is.


Although Sean is using some proprietary animated mattes from his company for the purpose of demonstrating this technique (and there are a few free ones available here), there shouldn't be any need to purchase them if you've got a little bit of extra time and access to After Effects. Although I can't say exactly how the Rampant Design mattes were created, you should be able to simply create and animate basic shapes in After Effects (and make the compositions any resolution you want), then export the composition as a QuickTime file with the alpha channel enabled. This way, you can create mattes that are fully customized to your needs without having to spend additional money. However, if you're in a bind and need some drag and drop mattes that will instantaneously give your videos more visual flare, the Rampant Design Tools mattes might just be a lifesaver.

Have you guys ever used animated mattes to spruce up your edits? Have you ever created mattes like these from scratch? If so, share your experiences and processes down in the comments!

Source: Rampant Design Tools