[Michael Szalapski]

I agree with David Johnson.

I would also like to add that the Total Training DVD’s are well worth the money they cost. They come with tons of example projects and, like with David’s suggestions, you can see what the instructor is doing.

I cannot imagine trying to teach AE over the phone. I Screensharing with something like Skype or iChat maybe; but not over the phone. I would charge more to teach it over the phone than I would to do it in person because of the added frustration of trying to talk through a visual program on the phone.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

Well, technically, it can import those files.
They should put in some sort of warning that, while you can import them, you’d probably find it preferable to pry your own eyes out with a dull spoon.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

Timecop came out in 1994. I have never seen it, but I’m guessing the technology to create this special effect wasn’t terribly advanced compared to the applications we have today. Just knowing Jean-Claude Van Damme and most action movies of the 90’s I’m guessing with the right combination of effects you could make a much better looking shot.

Just out of curiousity, I took the liberty of whipping out my iPhone and heading to YouTube to view the trailer. (YouTube is blocked at work, a hazard of working behind a Department of Defense firewall.)

If the effect to which you refer is the one seen in the trailer, then you can do this pretty well in AE. Just try out combinations of different distort effects and add a bit of fractal noise in there too.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

There are a few ways to make your background layer work in 3d.
1: Use Trapcode’s Horizon plugin, using the the paper texture layer for the horizon
2: Make it a large 3d layer at the bottom of the layer stack
3: Use it as a 2d layer and (since the camera move is pretty simple) keyframe its movement so it looks good.

As far as animating the mouth, it should be very easy in AE. It will just take some time.

Also, as you’re doing animation like this, you might consider using the puppet tool in After Effects for some of your animation.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

Tur your layers 3d and position them where you want them.
The easiest way to move your camera around to each one is to parent the camera to a 3d null object before you move the camera at all.
Then you can move the null’s position to each picture. That way you know where the camera’s point of interest is (the null) so you’ll always be able to rotate perfectly around each pic (using the y rotation of the null to orbit the camera around the pic).
Does that make sense? If not, perhaps this tutorial will help.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

I can understand your desire to change your ident. Years ago, it would have been fine, but not in today’s world.
My current schedule precludes me from being able to help other than offering suggestions and questions.
Question: what is your actual logo? Your Vimeo account has one logo, but your “ident” has another. They are very, very different. The color, texture, font, and pretty much every thing else is different. You should probably pick one and stick with it to have a cohesive brand identity. As it is, it just looks like you’re goofing off.
Suggestion: the current ident is too long. If visually interesting things were happening, it’d be okay; but since nothing happens it should be shorter. Make sure, whoever creates your new ident, that it is interesting or is significantly shorter.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

I’m extremely suspicious of USB video cards in general, but one thing I can assure you of; you shouldn’t have to worry about Open GL with AE. Most people turn off the Open GL preview feature of AE and never use it for rendering. It seems to have waaaaay too many issues with normal video cards anyway.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

Wait, did you install 7 or CS4? I don’t know where you’d go to get old versions, but you can get stuff for CS4 at Total Training’s website.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

It would be hard to beat Total Training for thoroughness. And, since you’re two versions back from the current one, you can probably find some AE 7 training on the cheap.

– 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.

[Michael Szalapski]

What programs are you using? The cat’s mouth is pretty basic animation. An unchanging top layer of teeth with a lower layer that you animate to form the words. How you go about creating it will vary depending on the program you’re using.

– 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.