Effects-y Promo

S

sdelahoyde

Active member
Was in between projects when I got an e-mail from this start-up theatre group here in Chicago who is staging their first play, "Short Eyes," next month. Wanted something, video-wise, to loop at an upcoming fundraiser and in the lobby, pre-show.

Had a few evenings free, sounded fun, so I made this little two minute piece. Uses a lot of After Effects junk, DVX footage we shot at the theatre's space, and clips from the film version of the play. I think it wound up turning out pretty good, considering the quick turnaround:

Quicktime: http://ic.funk.nu/Quicktime/teatro.mov
or
Real Player: http://ic.funk.nu/Real/teatro.rm
 
That was very cool.

If I stand on my knees and beg, what are the chances that you could a) maybe mail me a After effects sample file on how to do the beginning, eg. the "presents" (with the orange).

I love that effect and whould really like to know how it is done. Please!

thanks,
Derrick
 
Cool I miss doing things for my theatre friends. Are you ready for Shake 4? Oh baby, this is getting serious now. Nice AE work but D you don't have to beg. Go to http://creativecow.net and find the AE tutorials. It's all there.
 
Ja, I know Creativecow.net, great site. Thanks TimeKoder13. Do you know if there is an example of that nice text trick like in this intro ? I haven't seen one there yet ?

Thanks,
Derrick
 
It's really a pretty easy process. In AE, you put down a solid, your text, and a light. All in 3D. Then parent them all to an adjustment layer -- that way you just control the one layer (you could also use the camera, but I don't think that offers the same control as easily). Then you just keyframe whatever moves you want. Do the main moves first, and then do the extra bits, like moving the light a bit to make it seem more organic.

To give it a less harsh look, I did a couple of aesthetic things:

* Highlighted all the Position keyframes for the main movements (that main adjustment layer), and used The Wiggler to make it seem handheld, less rigid

* Threw on an adjustment layer on top of the whole thing, drew an oval mask, inverted it, feathered it by around 150, and added both blur and dropped the levels way down. Gives a nice vignette feel to it.

* Add blur to the text -- do this all the time! 90% of the time, text looks awful as is.

* The red/orange background is just some wood texture image I had laying around somewhere. Works much better than just a solid background, as it has some grit and some depth to it.

That answer anything for you? AE is just a program to get in there and suffer through. Luckily, that part is relatively easy to do, so you shouldn't have much trouble.
 
Maybe a little similar. This one's mostly about just a batch of prisoners and how they live/work together. A small section, but the most memorable part of the whole thing (and gives the play its name), is about a suburban pedophile who gets thrown into their holding area. I will hint that things do not go so well for said pedophile.

Some great performances in the film. A bit of trivia, it was Luis Guzman's very first film. Doesn't even have any lines. Just there for a second.
 
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