motion versus AE

[Scott Novasic]

in a super simplistic way…

If you think you like to do EDITING with a little animation and some effects work sprinkled in. Get FCP\motion.

If you want to do ANIMATION and FX work with the ability to do a little editing here and there as needed. Get After Effects.

The longest projects I felt comfortable doing entirely in after effects were music videos 4-6 minutes long and My demo reel, 5 minutes long.

For longer form work, FCP is the way to go. However, this is simply opinion and I am giving what I consider to be generalities, NOT the rule.

Good luck, both are industry standards and outstanding software.

SuperNova
Animation & Visual Effects
Scott Novasic
Los Angeles Ca
web:https://web.mac.com/finaleffects

[Bret Williams]

I don’t think I’d touch an edit more than 10 seconds long with AE. It is NOT for editing. But if you’re heavy on the effects, light on the editing, you could get an appropriate Adobe combo pack. Premiere is just as robust as FCP. Better in some ways, worse in others.

[Scott Novasic]

“I don’t think I’d touch an edit more than 10 seconds long with AE”

Im sorry, but thats just not a fair way to portray things. I have cut hundreds of mostly 30 and 60 second spots in AE. There is no ‘magic’ to a cut a fade and color correction. A lot of editors I have met try and portray their craft as technically difficult. Im sorry, but it is not. What IS DIFFICULT and what makes good editors, tends to be their artistic timing and pacing abilities. The good ones instinctly know and have a feel for how to handle footage. I do truly admire the good ones.
…..
I have a LOT less concern over an effects artist doing an edit, than I do an editor doing a high end special effect.

SuperNova
Animation & Visual Effects
Scott Novasic
Los Angeles Ca
web:https://web.mac.com/finaleffects

[Bret Williams]

It’s not about the craft. Yes you can edit in AE. But it’s a horrible tool for it. There’s essentially no transition or trimming support. Every clip is on it’s own layer. I don’t know about you, but in a 30 or 60 second spot, there might be 50-100 or more trimming and transition decisions. Each of which can require considerable tweaking and reediitng for a client. Doing so in AE, especially with a client over your shoulder, would be inefficient. It’s not designed for it or marketed for it and not many would even consider it. You are certainly welcome to edit with it, but I don’t feel it’s reasonable to recommend it for any sort of editing.

[Scott Novasic]

I responded to your rather dramatic statement that you wouldn’t edit anything more than 10 second with AE. Ive been using AE for 15 or so years. And it still amazes me that you try and say that AE has no transition or trimming support? Are you really serious. 50 to 100 decisions? Thats a SMALL number of layers\edits in most of my work.
Pre comping and any number of other techniques allows me to easily handle MORE layers and effects efficiently in AE. Not to mention that the types of things most editors do is handled in faster than realtime in AE. As I write this, I am at roughly 50 layers for the first 5 seconds of a 15 second national spot for a toy company. I am rendering my adjustments in about 10 seconds for a full 5 second realtime preview. Thats with heavy layering, compositing AND effects!

Ive worked in Flame\inferno, and other tools suites on spots with clients present. I was less than impressed with what could and could NOT be done in those environments. I can handle MORE things than that in AE with more flexibility, and now days every bit as fast.

If you would have read my original posting carefully, I recommended FCP for editing (for most projects) and AE for Animation and Effects work (for most projects) I did not mislead anyone. There just arent absolutes in our business. Clients, especially in this economy are finishing effects heavy spots in all types of ways. If you are unaware of how to edit lightning fast in AE, stop bye my LA studio and ill give you a demo, and yes with over 100 edits\layers.

Again, imho – FCP is the BEST for editing, it wins the prize.

It is my belief and experience that for short work, 60 secs or less, AE is very capable of doing everything you need and EVEN more.

Please, maybe we should agree nicely to disagree if necessary.

SuperNova
Animation & Visual Effects
Scott Novasic
Los Angeles Ca
web:https://web.mac.com/finaleffects

[Dave Montague]

A quick comment on AE vs FCP. AE (After Effects) says it all. I had 38 people working for me doing post and hands down the person using AE to edit took 3-4 times longer. It was never designed to do that.

Motion vs AE: Motion is cool because it is in real time and it is easy to use. However, it is buggy and often crashes. AE is solid and many times I find myself excited by early progress in Motion only to become disappointed by Motion’s instability as the project gets larger.

AE and Motion are tools for post editing. Being in Hollywood and working with several post production artists, I can share with you that not one used Motion or AE. All of them used FCP.

[Scott Novasic]

I’m in la as well. Not sure why that matters. Every artist I have worked with
Here. And animation companies that bring me in house, HAVE AE.
Some have fcp but off doing longer form stuff. Editing in it is simple. 38 artists?
That’s huge, I would never consider that
Kind of workflow normal, when 98% of production houses in the US have much less than half that number of artists on staff. Usually projects are given to one individual who has fcp and AE, or to a small team with the same software. ONLY when were given large amounts of long video clips, would we even touch fcp. And even then, we would give the footage to the FCP only editor
And have him give us what we need. We have 10x the creative flexibility in ae than we do in FCP. That’s just a fact. These are primarily 30-60 second
Spots. Motion graphics are not just post effects. Where I’ve been, in general, AE is king, fcp is used only in projects with a ton of footage to sort through. And then, we just do the footage sorting in fcp and export those clips to as. Sounds like you work in a factory type workflow with so many people.