Skip to main content

Investigation 5/10: My Brief Introduction To After Effects

Learning to use After Effects is something that I always planned on eventually doing. I still do intend on learning everything I would need to know about After Effects, but I have already experienced a brief introduction to using after effects.

Background

The reason that I started using After Effects was to create a meme. The meme that I wished to create my own interpretation of the video "Patrick on a seahorse listening to fly me to the moon". The original video is a modified version of the ending credit sequence of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion in which the character Patrick Star of the children's television show Spongebob Squarepants rides atop of a seahorse while the song Fly Me To The Moon (originally sung by Frank Sinatra) plays in the background. After coming across this meme, I felt that I wanted to create my own version of it using a video that had previously been recorded. The problem that I encountered however, was that the video was not recorded on a simple backdrop/green screen. This made it practically impossible to layer my video over the original meme cleanly. Looking for a solution to this problem is what led to me using After Effects.

Using After Effects

Once I knew that I would need to use After Effects, I quickly looked up tutorials of how to isolate a subject from a video. After watching a few quick videos, I was ready to begin my first attempt at removing my subject from my video. The process of doing this began with me importing my file into After Effects and using the Roto Brush Tool to mask out my subject. Once I did this, I advanced the video frame by frame and corrected the mask at points where it had gotten messed up. I repeated this until the entire video was complete. Next, I added the composition to my render queue and made sure that I specified the video output to be RGB + Alpha so that I would be able to layer the video over top of the original meme without having a black background. Once the render was complete, I imported the clip into Premiere Pro and finished making my meme.

Thoughts On After Effects

Despite the fact that I had no idea how to properly use After Effects, I enjoyed using it and I understand how useful of a tool it is. Even though my first project using it wasn't very polished nor was it something creative, I can see practical applications of using After Effects in more important projects. I plan on returning to After Effects soon in order to learn how to properly and efficiently use it. But until then, I can sit back and watch the meme I created after using After Effects for the first time.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elements and Principles of Cinematography

Bird's Eye  Curved Lines  Diagonal Lines  Emphasis  Formal Balance  Framing  Horizontal Lines  Informal Balance  Leading Lines  Movement/Rhythm Proportion/Scale  Repetition  Rule of Thirds  Simplicity  Unity  Variety  Vertical Lines  Worm's Eye
Post a Comment
Read more

Critique Reflection

(Submitted on 11/8/18 since I was sick) For our recreation of the scene from High School Musical, I felt that our process of recreating what was present in the actual scene was one of the better things we did for our project. When comparing our scene to the original, I feel that our shots were lined up very closely to what was originally present. As for what I feel I need to improve on, the main thing would be preparation. There were many points that we should've been more prepared which can be seen in the final film. Since we weren't prepared, some of our shots weren't close to what was seen in the original and some audio issues were present that could've been avoided if we had taken time to prepare before shooting. My strengths for this assignment would probably be my knowledge of the scene and trying to plan by day for what we needed to do. The weakness that I had was not being able manage my group as well as I felt I could. This prevented us from getting work d
Post a Comment
Read more

End of MP 1 Blog Post

After now reaching the end of the first marking period of the 2019-2020 school year, I am able to reflect back upon the work that I have completed so far. Intention Definition & Exploration Of Ideas Having no prior experience in any particular area of film, I set out to choose a topic to focus on that would allow me to help narrow down my focus. The area I chose to focus on was documentary and mockumentary styled film making. I made this choice with the intention to be able to explore both formal and less formal ideas while also not relying on having to create an entire original idea by myself. The topic of my film (The Game) was chosen because of my familiarity and pre-existing personal opinions about it. Planning Planning an entire production entirely by myself was a change of pace in comparison to how I worked in previous years. I began the planning process by typing out all of my thoughts in order to help establish what I am trying to do. Once I developed an idea for th
Post a Comment
Read more