nofilmschool » aftereffects

How to Create a Logo Sequence in After Effects Inspired by the Movie 'Looper'

Joe Marine — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:06:48 +0000

Rian Jonhson’s newest film Looper has gotten a bit of coverage on NoFilmSchool, from the availability of the script, to Johnson’s original sizzle reel, to his interesting in-theater commentary track. While the actual title sequence for the film is a bit different, Antonio Cerra from CRR_NTN and Aetuts+ has taken inspiration from one of the trailers for the film and produced an After Effects tutorial so you can create your very own logo complete with lens flares. Click through to check it out. (more…)

Save $250 Until March 15th on the Noise/Grain Removal Tool Used on Shane Hurlbut's 'Act of Valor'

Joe Marine — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:06:36 +0000

Hollywood films often use tools that regular users can’t easily afford. A good example of that is with a movie that Shane Hurlbut shot, Act of Valor, filmed on the Canon 5D Mark II. The post-production of that film involved a software suite called Dark Energy that is often used with restoring film prints, but in this case they used it to clean up DSLR footage and get rid of compression artifacts and noise, as well as add realistic grain. Well not too long ago, Cinnafilm, the company behind Dark Energy, introduced a Windows plugin for Adobe After Effects. Until Friday, March 15th, the plugin, which is normally $400, is down to just $150. Click through to learn more about it. (more…)

Another DIY Bullet-Time GoPro Rig (This One's Handheld!)

Dave Kendricken — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 02:10:36 +0000

We recently featured several practical but effective techniques for creating the (by now) famous Matrix-esque ‘bullet-time’ effect — accomplished, in more than one case, by using an evenly spaced array of GoPros and some post-processing elbow grease. Clearly, the availability and portability of such cameras is catching on beyond conventional ‘action cam’ uses, and inspiring creatives of nearly any budget to create shots only A-budget Hollywood productions used to be able to pull off. GoPros make sense for such arrays, because they are forgivingly frameable (and decently affordable as far as rentals go). Now, another project has demonstrated what’s possible with these simple but adaptable cameras — in this case, built into a rig that can also be handheld. (more…)

Element 3D After Effects Plug-In: Free 1.5 Update Released, Plus a Tutorial for Metropolitan Model Pack

Justin Minich — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:05:29 +0000

If you thought Video Copilot’s Adobe After Effects plug-in Element 3D couldn’t get any better, then check out the new features the free 1.5 update is sporting: support for importing animated 3D sequences, real-time glow, new particle ordering and repeating options, ambient occlusion improvements, layer grid mode, and more. Feast your eyes on Andrew Kramer’s video below for a complete tour of what’s new in Element 3D: (more…)

Want to Learn Adobe CS6 Inside and Out? Get $900 Worth of Training Videos for Just $100

Joe Marine — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 01:30:49 +0000

Learning a new piece of software can be a daunting task, especially when that software may be nothing like any program you’ve used before. Even if you’re an expert, getting a well-rounded walk-through of a suite of programs can make you better and more efficient — and you might even learn a thing or two. For a limited time, you can get a complete set of training videos for the entire Adobe CS6 suite for only $100. Click through to learn more and check out some sample lessons. (more…)

Deep Green Sea's 'The Art of Making' Puts a New Spin on 'How It's Made' Videos

Joe Marine — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:19:19 +0000

Videos that give insight into how something is made or constructed are absolutely fascinating to me, and I’ve spent countless hours pouring through many that would probably put the average person to sleep. That’s why when I came across Deep Green Sea’s The Art of Making – which details professionals who work with their hands — I couldn’t help but be impressed by the skill involved. Click through to check out the three videos they’ve made so far in the series. (more…)

Element 3D: 3 New Tutorials and How to Start Making Your Own 3D Content

Justin Minich — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:30:23 +0000

This past summer I wrote about the release and initial tutorials for Video Copilot’s awesome Adobe After Effects plug-in, Element 3D. Andrew Kramer has been slowly but surely releasing new tutorials for the plug-in that show off more aspects of its functionality and practical applications in After Effects projects. His three latest Element 3D tutorials delve into image based lighting, using video clips as textures to create screen animations, and making a field of random rocks as a part of a set extension. As an extra bonus, I’ve included some tutorials for the free open-source 3D modeling and animation program Blender, to get you started making your own objects for Element 3D. (more…)

Liquifying Faces: After Effects Morphing Tutorial (No Plug-Ins Required)

Dave Kendricken — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 03:30:46 +0000

Filmmaking often comes down to problem-solving, though not that every task we face is necessarily problematic. I think we arrive at many solutions by way of new, situation-specific techniques that are built by a combination of the techniques we already know. When it comes to digital effects, it can help to possess a variety of techniques in our experiential arsenal. Who knows, perhaps having learned a basic tool within a software will help time-budget an effect, or maybe even save some money? In this vein, we’re happy to bring you this After Effects tutorial from AE.Tuts+ — in it, Axel Sorenson explains how to reshape one subject’s face into another, without the use of (paid) third party plug-ins. His example uses stills, but remember, in AE, anything you can think, you can track! (more…)

Paul Trillo Creates a 360° Panorama with a Canon 7D for the Peach Kings Music Video 'Lonely'

Ryan Koo — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 23:30:15 +0000

When one of my roommates moved to LA to pursue a full-time screenwriting career, I used the following criteria to choose a new roommate: “which among our applicants is the most talented filmmaker?” Instead of shooting stills of my Brooklyn apartment I had shot a walkthrough video on my RED (it was sitting on my desk so it was actually easier than taking a bunch of photos, but… most overkill apartment video ever!) and so there were a lot of people to choose from. Paul Trillo, it turned out, had seen me speak at the Vimeo festival and I had backed his Kickstarter campaign, even though we’d never met, so the choice was easy. Paul moved in and promptly shot this lovely music video on his Canon 7D: (more…)

Collaborate Almost Everywhere with Adobe Anywhere

Dave Kendricken — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 02:52:08 +0000

Okay, so my title’s a little unfair: Adobe’s new “collaborative workflow platform” may not work literally everywhere, but it will work anywhere there’s WiFi or an ethernet hook-up. Whether you’re a long-time Adobe advocate or a latter-day convert to Premiere Pro, Adobe Anywhere could be making your life just that much easier down the line, especially if you’ve ever manually had to manage media over the internet and across several parties. Click through for details. (more…)

Adobe Ending Support for CinemaDNG in Premiere Pro

Joe Marine — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 07:44:54 +0000

Speaking of CinemaDNG, its creator, Adobe, has been very lukewarm in terms of support for the format. Photoshop and After Effects have always had compatibility since they can use the Camera RAW plugin, but Premiere has only had experimental support since CS 5.5. Now they have announced that they are pulling support for the CS 5.5 plugin. A recent post simply stated that the CinemaDNG initiative would be discontinued and no longer hosted on Adobe Labs. That statement has since been updated, but click through for the full explanation about what this really means for users of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and the future of the format on Adobe’s software. (more…)

Don't Have a Make-up Artist on Set? Remove Skin Blemishes from Your Video Using After Effects

Joe Marine — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:31:42 +0000

I’ve been asked to remove blemishes and other imperfections from still photos, but with a video, on the other hand, it’s a bit more involved. When the image isn’t moving, you don’t have to worry about tracking the trouble spot to match the camera and the movement of the subject. We’ve shared quite a few tutorials for Adobe products in the past, but this one specifically uses After Effects to try to make those skin imperfections disappear for good. (more…)

Video Copilot Releases Their Stunning New After Effects Plug-in: Element 3D

Justin Minich — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:00:23 +0000

If you thought the new 3D capabilities in Adobe After Effects CS6 were impressive, you haven’t seen anything yet. Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot just released the Element 3D Plug-in for After Effects CS3 through CS6 on both Windows and OSX. It’s a 3D object based particle array system with a fast Open GL render engine, and a simple yet powerful animation engine. Check out these demo videos to see Element 3D in action: (more…)

Just Starting Out with Creative Suite 6? Adobe Has a Bunch of Free Basic Training Videos For You

Justin Minich — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:43:41 +0000

So you bought a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 6 or downloaded it via Creative Cloud. Where do you start? Well, Adobe has a slew of videos on their website to introduce you to the changes in the Premiere Pro and After Effects interfaces, and to show you how the new features in CS6 work. Here are some of my favorites: (more…)

Adobe Officially Launches Creative Suite 6, Now Taking Preorders

Justin Minich — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:19:52 +0000

Adobe has launched Creative Suite 6 and is now taking pre-orders (no word on a release date yet). This latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite includes more Mercury acceleration, adjustment layers in Premiere Pro, Speed Grade for color grading, ray-traced extruded 3D objects and reflections and 3D camera tracking in After Effects, Creative Cloud, and more. You can also check out an overview of the new features in Joe’s post on day 2 at NAB 2012, as well as the official Adobe Production Premium video with Jason Levine: (more…)

How to Track Motion in After Effects (Using the Free Plugin Mocha)

Ryan Koo — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Mocha is an advanced motion-tracking plugin for Adobe After Effects that is conveniently bundled with AE for free. I’ve done most of my motion tracking in After Effects using its native tracking abilities, but Mocha offers more advanced controls. So here’s a tutorial of how to use Mocha — in this case, to properly track a wall in a moving shot, and to add some graffiti in post to said wall. This is an excerpt of a After Effects training course at Lynda.com by Chris Meyer and Trish Meyer: (more…)

All Automatic Duck Plugins are Free for a Limited Time

Ryan Koo — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:59:12 +0000

I am way late with this, but better late than never — and better free than $500. Wes and Harry Plate, the father-son duo behind Automatic Duck, were recently hired by Adobe. Automatic Duck makes (made) the well-known plugins Pro Import AE, Pro Import FCP, and Pro Export FCP, which allow users to open Final Cut Pro projects in After Effects, as well as enabling some other interoperability. This move by Adobe seems as much to prevent the duo from updating their must-have plugins for Final Cut Pro X, as much as it is to help Adobe with their already admirable integration between Premiere Pro and After Effects, but as a result all of Automatic Duck’s existing plugins — which formery ran $500 apiece — are free. Said Wes and Harry: (more…)

How to Animate a Kickstarter Widget in After Effects (Thanks to Joke and Biagio)

Ryan Koo — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:32:57 +0000

During the Man-child Kickstarter campaign I received a few questions about my pitch video, which included an animated example of the Kickstarter widget. This is not something that originated with my campaign — it was a creation of the filmmaking team Joke and Biagio, who first used it in their Dying to do Letterman campaign, and then shared it for anyone else to use. It’s a very nice tool to help illustrate how a crowdfunding campaign works, so if you’re going to run your own campaign, you might find this useful: (more…)

How to Create a Photo-Video Hybrid 'Cinemagraph'

Ryan Koo — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:23:44 +0000

Animated GIFs have grown up. This happened a few months ago, but I missed the buzz, so as featured on the photo blog From Me to You, here’s how to create photo/video hybrids that will make you forget the dithered .gifs of yore. This seems relevant given the increasing hybridization of still and motion photography, and the resulting stills — though some work better than others — certainly do stand out on the page. Here’s a tutorial on creating a so-called “cinemagraph” using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects: (more…)

How to Clone Yourself in a Handheld Shot (a Tutorial for Going Beyond my Kickstarter Video)

Ryan Koo — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:09:08 +0000

I assume by now you’ve seen my Kickstarter video, which features two of me composited into one shot. Everyone knows how to do this — set up the camera on a tripod, don’t move it between takes, and film both sides one after the other — but it’s not a very “good” effect if you’re trying to go for something that isn’t so obvious. One way to make the effect more subtly convincing is to make it a handheld shot, and while I didn’t take my campaign video this far, I thought I’d use the video to show one way of compositing two people into a more naturalistic, shaky shot using After Effects. Here’s the tutorial (which is pretty basic, but may be educational to anyone new to After Effects): (more…)