[John Cuevas]

If I read it correctly, you should parent the 2nd Null to the first null.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

It would be helpful if you provided a link/video of the effect in question for those of us who haven’t played mortal kombat.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Instead of using freeze frames and splitting the layer, use Layer>Time>Enable Time Remap(cntl+alt+t). You can put in create your own freeze frame by adding a keyframe when you want the frame frozen, copy the keyframe, select the keyframe and the last keyframe(AE creates a start/end keyframe when you remap) and move them down the timeline(this maintains the normal speed, then pasting the copied keyframe where you want the freeze to start.

Sounds a bit complicated, but the trick is to maintain the normal speed, so you need to be very vigilant about moving all the keyframes after your freeze frame.

I made a simple example project where I took a 30 second timer, froze it twice for 5 seconds, and then had it start again to illustrate the technique.

8875_timeremap.aep.zip

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

If you press/hold down the space bar, it will switch to the hand tool.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

First video is done practically. You could try creating a displacement map using one of the color channels of the girl layer. Place the “projection video” on a new layer, then use a distort > displacement layer effect and a transfer mode to simulate that look. Really depends on how good of displacement layer you create.

Here’s a simple tutorial on displacement maps

In the second video, he’s shot over something that is easy to key. From there the keyed layer is placed on top of the stack, the clouds on the bottom, and then another version of him on the bottom. The clouds track matte is then set to “alpha matte” or “luma matte” then either a transfer mode is used or the opacity of the layer is adjusted to restore some of the singers details(probably both were used).

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

have you tried any of the distort effects, like bezier warp?

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

You could create a keyframe 1 frame before and one frame after your mask, where it is the size of screen.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

If it’s going to fit into one pane, I would precomp the text into a comp the same size as your final, then use the Distort > Corner Pin effect to place it into one pane.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

You might want to look at this very very old tutorial. Using Projection Layers to create a gobos and projector type effects

Completely different approach that might be worth checking out.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Sure, you would use a slider to create the numbers then input them into a text field using:

Math.round(Math.abs(thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")))

Round just rounds the slider number and Math.abs uses just absolute value of the number, ignoring whether it’s postive or negative.

For the AD/BC, you connect to the same slider and use an If/Else statement.

var date = ["AD","BC"]
myInput = thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("Slider Control")("Slider");

if (myInput > 0) date[0] else date[1]

Here’s a simple project with it all worked out: 8822_datecountdown.aep.zip

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.