[Rjf E:613]

Aharon,

Well sure.. if you want the EASY way! 🙂 Yeah forgot you had full screen versions. Thanks for the reminder!

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Hi Paul,

Aharon Rabinowitz did an awesome three-part tutorial on “Displacement Maps”, which is probably what you want to use, if I understand the effect you’re trying to achieve. I am on 6.5 and 7 so I’m not sure if this was included in AE 6.

Basically it involves 1.) corner pinning the logo (or text) to get the perspective, 2.) dropping the opacity and changing the blending mode to color correct, and 3.) finally (most important) applying the Displacement Map filter to distort the logo where the ripples are.

There’s a lot more to it than that but you get the idea. Go here and scroll down near the bottom for the links to each of the 3 parts:
https://www.creativecow.net/aepodcast/

Or you can subscribe through iTunes. Or do a search for After Effects Displacement to come up with other examples.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

I love the advice on this website (including some dos and dont’s):
https://www.eits.uga.edu/dms/demos.html

…and a link to plethora of demos on this website:
https://www.motionographer.com/

Not that I’m suggesting you copy! Having said all that, I’ve never structured a demo reel before. I’m sure some other qualified people can give you further advice. Good luck!

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

If you’re talking about the “bad film” look you usually see with old western movies, go here:

https://voir.mylenium.de/creation/telechargements/ae_tele_looks_free.html

The top project file is a “bad film” example. Open it to give yourself some idea of how to achieve that look. Each effect is on a separate adjustment layer so it’s real simple to see how it is constructed from top to bottom. There is also a CC Burn In (name?) film transition a la “Bonanza” included with AE. Hope this helps!

– rjf

[Rjf E:613]

No problem, glad to help.

(for what it’s worth, it also looks like they added a bit of vertical blur (effect->blur->fast blur applied ONLY to the Y axis) to enhance the shutter look as they tiled it).

How did you find that reel?

– rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Hmm… if you’re talking about the VERY beginning (20 – 40 frames into it), it almost looks like CC Motion Tile added with a Layers or Curves call to brighten it up. If you want to do this with your footage, you could add both of these effects to an adjustment layer. That’s what I’d do, anyway. Either that or precompose all of your layers, then add the Motion Tile effect.

BTW, what a great reel!

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

If you have After Effects 7, there are some GREAT preset backgrounds already available. Though they may not work for your situation, they are a great way to find out how backgrounds are made. They might steer you in the right direction.

You can also see some of Dean Velez’ stuff here…

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=1&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/velez_dean/FuturisticBKG/index.html
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=1&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/velez_dean/FireBKG/index.html
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=1&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/velez_dean/RageBkg/index.html
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=1&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/velez_dean/DNA_bkg/index.html

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

For those curious,

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?univpostid=306208&forumid=58&postid=306566&pview=t&archive=T

Again Chris thanks for your original help!

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Sure!

Step 1:) Create a new white or yellow solid. Choose the Circle Mask tool (keyboard shortcut: “Q” until you see a circle icon in the toolbar) and create a perfect circle mask on your solid by holding down shift and dragging to the desired Pac Man size. Next choose the pen tool (keyboard shortcut “G”) and click once in the middle of the circle and two more times outside the left of the circle for a total of three points, creating the mouth. Go into the timeline and change the Mask2 option from “Add” to “Subtract”. This should subtract the triangle out of the circle forming the mouth. You may have to tweak the points of the mouth slightly to form a good looking triangle.

Step 2:) on to animation… go to the first frame of the composition and set a keyframe for the mask shape of the mouth. Go down say 3 to 5 frames (keyboard shortcut “PageDown” for each frame) and collapse the outer points of the mouth to close the mouth off in a chomping motion. A keyframe for this shape will already be created. then go down another 3 to 5 frames. Select the first keyframe in the timeline and choose “control+C” on a PC or “command+C” on a Mac to copy the keyframe value. Then choose “control+v” or “command+v” to paste that value. You should now have a total of three keyframes. If you scrub back and forth, you’ll see the mouth open and close.

Step 3:) unfortunately, I’m not able to see a way to loop keyframes for a mask shape (wonder why?). So your choices are to either copy and paste the three keyframes a bunch of times, or precompose and loop it that way.

Hope this gets you started!

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Hey,

thanks for getting back to me. I do indeed have CS2 and AE 7.0… I dont’ see a template for DV anamorphic (or widescreen) with square pixels. I DO see one at 720×480 with a 1.2 pixel aspect ratio. So if I understand you correctly…

I should no longer be working with square pixels in Photoshop but should instead be working with the 1.2 pixel aspect ratio? Bummer.. Let me know if I’m interpreting your answer correctly. Thanks again

rjf