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Welcome to class. This first session is going to focus on the definitions of motion graphic design and help define what to expect from this awesome, ever-changing creative field. 

In this session, we will explore the interface of After Effects, how to move around within the program, opening and importing files and how to stay well organized with your own files andThe word folders. 

This session will start with the foundations of basic animation and movement of simple shapes. Then move into time, space and key frames. You will see how this will apply to more complex work as we move along.

We will just scratch the surface of typography to get enough experience under our belt to make some simple typographic animations to help you communicate effectively and efficiently. You should see very quickly what a great asset kinetic type can be. 

In this session we will explore the relationships and behaviors between objects and elements to help expand our movements and animations. 

The work we will be doing in character development will be focused on the world of gaming, but it should be pretty easy to see how one could take this approach and use it in virtually any creative application. There’s more that goes into creating characters and stories than meets the eye, so let’s dive in further. 

In this session will take a close look at natural movement and flow, and will also address many of the great effects at our fingertips and how to use them without abusing them.

Hiding and revealing images in an integral part of motion design. Whether compositing digital effects into a live action video clip, or revealing text in a more interesting way, we have to find different and more engaging ways to do it. This is why masks and mattes are important.

As we covered previously, type can be so much more than just words on a screen. Instead of thinking about type as just something you have to be able to read, try to look at them as powerful graphical elements themselves while at the same time conveying a readable message to the viewer.

Fire, smoke, light and energy. There are many forms that we can explore when diving into the world of particles.  We are going to look at some ways that After Effects helps us easily add particles to our scenes, and then we will see what we can do with them.

After Effects can create so much content on its own, that it’s easy to forget what else it can do. We can make fun cartoons, flashy type, sleek graphics… but how do we use video itself inside the program? Maybe we want to add graphics to video to help explain something more clearly, or make a cool Youtube channel intro video, or even ad special effects to a friend or client’s short film. But we first have to learn how to use video layers as artistic elements themselves. We will start by touching on the amazing history of how video was first created, how it became digital, and what that means for us as artists.

Green and blue screen technology is widespread from news to Hollywood blockbusters. We will learn more about this advanced process and incorporate it into our work. Whether you want to shoot your own green screen footage or embellish someone else’s footage, we will learn some great techniques on how to pull a great chroma key.

The goal for this session is to understand the ideas behind compositing and feel confident in blending graphics and video for relatively basic composites, but to also get the artist comfortable to a point to take it further in their own pursuit.

As we finish up with our work from this class, we should take a moment to reflect on the new tools and techniques we have picked up, and how they have and will continue to affect our creative work, our stories we need to tell and the experiences we wish to share.