Adobe After Effects and Animation Beginners Short Course
Course description
Course overview
Adobe After Effects (AE) is the industry-standard application for motion graphics design, digital visual effects and video compositing. It is often used by designers, illustrators, motion artists, videographers and post-production professionals 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.
This short course will open the world of After Effects to you where you'll learn the core functions of this versatile application and a solid workflow that can be applied to different visual projects.
You'll work on a series of introductory live motion design projects like creating animated graphics, text, shapes and a simple character animation. You'll learn the basics of sound, plus work on video compositing exercises to remove elements from a shot, or to isolate a subject from the background.
After Effects integrates tightly with other applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro, and in the course, we will use graphics and designs created with Photoshop and Illustrator to animate in AE.
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.
This course is available both on campus or online.
Who this course is for
Aspiring video artists, filmmakers and graphic designers looking to gain an understanding of Adobe After Effects. Experience using Creative Cloud applications 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.
Key information
Topics covered
- Exploring the After Effects interface
- Importing layered Photoshop and Illustrator files (course files provided)
- Compositions, Preferences and key settings
- Exploring the timeline
- Working with Layers and Solids
- Animating with keyframes and expressions
- Basic Text Animation in After Effects
- Text Animators and Text Animation Presets
- Masks
- Keyframes, Interpolation and Easing
- The Graph Editor
- Basic character animation
- Applying effects and the Effect Controls panel
- Pre-Composing, blend modes, textures
- Working with video clips in After Effects
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Rendering and exporting
Learning outcomes
- 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
- Digital badge and certificate of attendance
Materials
On campus or Online
Please note it is advisable to save your work on a Cloud based platform of your choice OR on a portable storage device (USB-C) throughout your course.
IMPORTANT - Adobe ID Login for Short Course Students
Students will need to create an account with Adobe (unless you already have one) in order to access the Adobe suite at the college; instructions are included below. You will need to use a personal email address to create this. If you already have an account with Adobe, please make sure you bring your login details with you on the first day of the course.
Please note:
- Creating an Adobe account is free
- The software will only be accessible when logged into a UAL networked computer
- The same account can be used outside of the University, but software will only be accessible through a personal paid subscription that students will need to set up independently
- You can still create an account on the day but doing this beforehand will save time and avoid delays to the start of the class
- If you already have an Adobe ID/ subscription you can use this on your short course rather than setting up a new account
To create an account students will need to:
- Go to Adobe Sign in page
- Select 'Create an account'
- Enter your details and select 'Create account'
Please also bring to the first session:
- Notebook and pen
If you are taking this course online, please see our Guide to taking online short courses.
Tutor
Francesco de Manincor
Francesco de Manincor is a character designer, animator, motion designer and videographer with over 20 years of experience in the creative industries in London.
As a freelance audiovisual artist with a passion for education, Francesco has been teaching for UAL and UAL Short Courses since 2016, and has a broad experience in visual storytelling, from storyboarding to animation, video production to post-production.
You can view Francesco's projects on https://demanincor.tv/ and https://spoonfyysh.tv/
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