Adobe After Effects and Animation Beginners Short Course

Course description

After Effects is the industry-standard tool for motion graphics design, digital visual effects and video compositing.

Designers, illustrators, motion artists, videographers and post-production professionals use it for web and social media content, videos, animation, film and TV, to tell stories or to promote brands, products, or their own artwork, and to engage audiences.

AE brings life and motion to graphics, text, logos, titles, characters, shapes, illustrations and more by combining and animating multiple layers, adding effects, mixing video with other visual content... the possibilities are endless.

This short course will open the world of After Effects to you with a series of live motion design projects - animating graphics, text, shapes, a simple character animation, the basics of sound in AE, plus video compositing exercises to remove elements from a shot, or to isolate a subject from the background.

You will learn the core functions of this versatile application, a solid workflow that can be applied to different visual projects.

If you use other Adobe applications the AE interface will be familiar, and although this course will start with AE from scratch, it’s a more natural progression to go from Photoshop and/or Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro on to After Effects, which will then prove to be a formidable tool to add motion to your designs, videos, illustrations and artwork.

Course Outcomes

By the end of this course you should be able to:

• Understand the After Effects interface and main concepts
• Work with comps and pre-comps
• Use keyframes to animate an object's main parameters
• Understand and use easing and keyframe interpolation
• Use effects to create animation
• Apply basic animation to text
• Use solids and masks to create animation
• Optimise preferences
• Render and export an After Effects project into different video formats

Who Should Attend
Aspiring video artists, filmmakers and graphic designers looking to gain an understanding of Adobe After Effects

Level
Beginner: You do not need any prior knowledge of Adobe After Effects. Experience using CC platforms such as Photoshop or Illustrator will be to your advantage, but not necessary.

Please be advised that during this course you will be using After Effects. If you do not already have After Effects, you can sign up for a free 7 day trial of Adobe Creative Cloud. Please note a credit card is required to register for the free trial. The subscription must be cancelled on the date provided by Adobe if you do not wish to continue onto a paid account.

Clear, easy to understand lessons:

• Our tutors will explain things in easy to understand, accessible English. If they need to use any special terminology they will make sure they explain what they mean.
• New methodologies will be explained or demonstrated
• We also offer learning resources for you to access outside of the classroom

All our on campus courses include:

• Study at Central Saint Martins, Granary Square a world-famous art and design college
• Network and share ideas with students from across the globe
• Access the technology and materials relevant to your discipline
• Shop in our college shops for any materials you might need
• Ask questions to your tutor in real time
• Receive feedback and critique on your assignments
• Experience the many sights of London on your down time

All our online short courses include:

• Live and interactive online lessons with classmates from around the world
• The same course content and learning outcomes as our face to face courses
• Lesson recordings, for review, so you never have to miss a class
• Access to the virtual learning environment with course content
• Forums for support
• 2 weeks online access to the recordings of the live classroom sessions
• Ask questions to your tutor in real time

A certificate of completion:

• You've put the work in so we want to make sure you have something to show for it!
• As long as you attend a minimum of 80% of your classes, we will provide you with a certificate of attendance.
• However we always recommend you attend all of the classes so that you get the most out of the experience!
• Certificates are a great addition to your CV