[Iancorey]

If I’m not mistaken, you should just use the codec that’s embedded. In other words, a direct duplication onto your PC’s drive.

Here’s what I’d do to make sure:
Open FCP.
Select a clip.
Hit Command 9
Look for the row that tells you the encoding.
It’s something like HDV 720.

DO NOT USE SORENSON 3! It’s Lossy.

[Iancorey]

Press the ‘ key. You know, the ” key. The one right next to Return or Enter. This brings up the title and action safe areas and has a convenient center cross.

[Iancorey]

I’m going to play the Dave LaRonde card here, so bear with me:

If you want exactly the effect that you see in that video, why don’t you ask them to go ahead and make it for you? I mean, they conceived the effect and implemented it, the least they can do is come over your house and put it in your video, right?

My point is, use that effect as a starting point to expand your creative horizons. No one gets any where just copying other people’s stuff.

Unless it’s me being Dave. Then it’s all good.

Good luck, Simmi.

[Iancorey]

I think it looks pretty great. The only thing I’d offer is to let it bounce off of the left and “land” onto its intended horizontal position rather than keeping the same Y coordinated throughout. That is, bring it in a little higher, have it bound and land in position.

[Iancorey]

Good point, DLR.

What I’d “leave out of the stew” would be that vignette. It looks really bogus. Especially as the video is embedded on a blue background.

[Iancorey]

Those squiggles that appear look like they are Strokes on a layer above with Gaussian Blur applied and then set to Add Mode. The mask for the stroke just looks completely random. They look like they travel upwards (toward -and off- the top of the frame). So maybe the solid on which the Stroke is applied is 200% the height of the video frame.

[Iancorey]

Yeah. Just make sure you turn on the motion blur.

Let us know how it turned out.

[Iancorey]

Those layers are vector in AI only. When you bring them into AE they go raster. I know, it’s a beotch.

If you’ve got something that’s going to be super-close to the camera, consider copying the vector shape from AI and pasting it onto a solid in AE as a mask. Now you have a true vector shape.

If most of your elements are going to be not so closely inspected you can leave them as AI shapes.

It’s definitely not as easy or ‘cool’, but I’ve tried to get into the habit of creating as much as I can in the AE environment with solids and masks.

[Iancorey]

Looks like they have every explosion from my favorite cheesy 80’s Tv shows and movies. Go MacGyver intro!!

[Iancorey]

Yeah, that’s the way. Study some footage of frogs eating. You might find something at archive.org in the Prelinger Archive or on Google Video. Also some herpetology sites might have something (maybe slo-mo!).

I take it that you’re new to animation in any case. The advantage that you have is that your animation won’t even be on screen for a second. If you choose AE, this is what I’d do:

• Create a new comp 20 frames long.
• Create a pink solid.
• Mask out a long horizontal ‘tongue’
• Start at 10 frames on the timeline
• Apply key frames to the Mask Shape of the tongue going “back into the mouth”
• Copy those key frames and paste them at frame 0 on the timeline
• Tweak it as necessary

Remember that the faster something moves, the more gap it should have between itself on successive frames.