Today is Wednesday, 10th March 2010

Posts Tagged ‘After Effects’


On lynda.com: Extended Vignette Techniques

Our most recent video course is After Effects: Extended Vignette Techniques, available exclusively through lynda.com. Creating vignettes – darkening or otherwise treating areas of an image in order to focus the viewer’s attention on your desired point of interest – may not seem sexy on the surface, but it is one of the most universal techniques you can learn. This is another one of our “foundational” courses in that rather than going through one whiz-bang project, we demonstrate a basic technique that you can use over and over again in a variety of situations. Vignettes can be used to better frame your subject, fix a poorly-composed shot, give a vintage feel, create “quiet areas” to overlay text and other graphics, blend an image over a new background, or otherwise creatively treat footage.

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On lynda.com: Extended Vignette Techniques

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User Interface Design for Hollywood

We’ve all noticed the really bad “you’ve got mail” computer and data display screens that pop up in Hollywood movies. What we tend to miss are the really good ones, which are realistic. (Fun fact: Stanley Kubrick insisted that all of the displays shown in 2001 be plausible, including reflecting the correct state of the planets etc. at the point during the trip when they appear.) One of the best designers of these screens is Mark Coleran (who currently designs real-world user interfaces for Gridiron Software, including Flow). Mark was recently interviewed by both NPR and Spark, where he shared some insight into his craft. (I’d suggest following the above links in order, as it starts with the eye candy and ends with his unabridged analysis.) Interesting is that there’s been a lot of backlash to his NPR interview, as some have used him as the public face for all of the bad movie screen design that is out there. Some of the criticism is unfounded; some of it is simply the result of the common situation we all face in delivering what the client wants, for better or worse. As Mark recently commented in his defense on an After Effects forum, “I and the others who do and did this stuff spend a long time trying to haul it back to reality. Perhaps the story aspect is a post-hoc rationalization, but the requirements are very different.” Regardless of whether or not you like the result, Mark is one of the best After Effects artists out there, with a fantastic emphasis on both detail and efficiency. If you ever get a chance to see him talk live about screen design, do so.

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User Interface Design for Hollywood

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Masters of Visual Effects – Online

Matt Silverman, Creative Director of Bonfire Labs, is a certifiable After Effects old-timer (although he also has experience in many different systems), particularly known as being a roto expert in addition to a motion graphics and visual effects artist. Several years ago, he took it upon himself to enlist some of the best users in the field to construct a set of timeless, concept-based, software-agnostic visual effects training videos. These VHS tapes are long out of print, so Matt has started to digitize them and place them online. The links for Series 2 (covering compositing, keying, tracking, paint, and rotoscoping presented by Ron Brinkmann, Stu Maschwitz, and Scott Stewart) are below; watch them while you can:

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Masters of Visual Effects – Online

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