• Adobe After Effects

  Music video splits with after effects

  Posted by Jay Toss on July 19, 2011 at 9:59 am

  I’m making a music video with animation.. I have alot of takes so i would like to split a video layer but not into two separate layers. I want to split a piece of a layer out so it reveals another video take underneth. That way i can cut back and forth between shots. Kind of like sony vegas, its nice to be able to cut a small piece out of a video to use another “layer” video under it. Right now im using the opacity to go between shots (make video layer 0 opacity to reveal video under it) but it takes to longg!!! Can any one please help me

  Thanks ahead of time 🙂

  Jay Toss replied 15 years, 1 month ago 4 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  Brian Charles

  July 19, 2011 at 1:56 pm

  You want the functionality of an NLE in After Effects, sorry, can’t be done.

  If you have Adobe PremierePro do, do your edits there and import the Premiere Project into After Effects for the animations and effects.
• 

  Jay Toss

  July 19, 2011 at 7:01 pm

  Thanks for the replys guys! I have both vegas and premiere but i really like after effects coloring and animation effects.. So if im doing typography
  animation, it makes it easy if the videos are in the same program.. How would i o about using both programs or there isnt a way in after effects to make the process a bit quicker then using opacity

  Thanks again!
• 

  Walter Soyka

  July 19, 2011 at 8:41 pm

  Jay, I’m having a hard time visualizing what exactly it is you’re trying to do. Can you take another shot at describing what you’re trying to do?

  AE is a good compositor, so it’s a natural fit for combining multiple layers of video within a shot or even a small sequence. It’s not a non-linear editor, so it’s a bad choice for the editorial work of constructing and ordering the shots within the entire sequence.

  Since it sounds like you’re new to AE, I’ll give you the standard recommendation: start with Adobe employee Todd Kopriva’s introductory resources for AE [link].

  Walter Soyka
  Principal & Designer at Keen Live
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
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• 

  Jay Toss

  July 20, 2011 at 12:49 am

  Thanks for the reply Walter!

  I suck at explaining.. Music videos have many scenes that cut back in and out of each other.. that way its not one continuous shot ( that would be boring)they use fade transitions etc. I know After effects isn’t the best for arranging video scenes the way Sony Vegas or premier would be. but i would like to know what would be the best way to do that sort of thing in after effects achieving what sony vegas could do.

  thanks again..
• 

  Michael Szalapski

  July 20, 2011 at 3:17 pm

  You do realize that you’re asking how to carve a sculpture with a paintbrush, right?

  There are tools for splitting layers (ctrl+shift+d on a PC), but you’re going to get a new layer for each cut. You could then put all those cuts into a precomp so you have one layer.

  AE is NOT made to be an editing application. Use Premiere or Vegas, please. Especially for something like a music video with lots of cuts.

  – The Great Szalam
  (The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

  No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
• 

  Jay Toss

  July 20, 2011 at 6:09 pm

  thanks Michael.. Yeah i get the point. I’ll just use both programs to get the job done thanks!

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