Moving Magic - Intro to Adobe After Effects

Moving Magic - Intro to Adobe After Effects will familiarize new learners to the exciting art of modern post production and digital special effects. 

Through fun hands-on practice and extensive demos learners will learn how to edit video on an industry grade software. 
Beginning with the foundations, learners will survey the user interface, and develop efficient workflow practices using keyboard shortcuts, customization, presets and proper file management.  
Then its off to the cool stuff! From animating titles and stills to advanced special effects, morphing, tracking, masking, crafting 3D virtual environments and rotoscoping all the way to working with expressions to create wholly unique compositions.

The first half of each class will feature a live demo, followed by the learners practicing the new material on their own devices. The learners will be guided step by step and given time to ask questions while experiencing the software first hand. At the conclusion of each class the group will be assigned a mini exercise to further increase their skill. These will be reviewed at the beginning of the next class to ensure consistency in comprehension before moving on to the next demo.

To master After Effects, learners will need to spend time with the software. This class will cater to their needs and interests, in order to maintain learning in a fun and engaging environment. Learners will be encouraged to play with the software, ask questions and try new things, they will be challenged to realize their concepts and find creative solutions. 
Interaction within the group will be key. Learners will present their assignments and participate in group critiques. They will receive and offer constructive feedback from their peers and share their impressions of the process in active discussions.

Tentative Schedule: 

Week one - Introduction
Learners and instructor, expectations from the course and areas of interest. Demo: Video file formats, conversion on Adobe Media Encoder, resolution, frame rates and codecs, integrating After Effects clips into a Premiere Sequence.  Mini exercise: Convert three clips into an editable format.

Week two - The UI
Demo on the user interface (UI), user settings, menus, customizing the workspace and keyboard shortcuts, creating new compositions, importing and exporting media, navigating the timeline and panels, making cuts and trims. Mini exercise: Create and edit a simple sequence using three different clips. 

Week three - Transform and animate I
Demo: Transforming opacity, anchor points, scale and rotation. Animating transformations, keyframes and eases. Mini exercise: Animate three transformations in your sequence. 

Week four - Shapes and titles
Demo: create text boxes and titles, create shapes, the pen tool, text animators, precomposing, parenting layers, null objects. Mini exercise: Create and animate titles for your sequence. 

Week five - The effects library
Demo: Survey of effects, applying, modifying and animating permitters, adjustment layers. Mini exercise: Apply and animate effects to your clips both directly and by using adjustment layers.

Week six - Mask, track, blend and style
Demo: Creating masks, clipping and tracking, blending modes and layer styles. Mini exercise: Mask and track a moving subject, create and style a composite sequence using a blending mode. 

Week seven - Rotoscoping and puppeteering in 3D
Demo: Rotoscoping a subject, the puppet mesh warp tool, virtual 3D, virtual cameras and lights, material properties. Mini exercise: Rotoscope subject, create "2.5D" animation.

Week eight - Composite Videos 
Demo: Workflow of planting and seamless blending of videos together. Mini exercise: Create composite video.

Week nine - Expressions
Demo: Expression presentation, function and resources on working with the most common lines of code. Mini exercise: complete individual projects.

Week ten - Wrap up 
Demo: Working through troubleshoots, exporting your project. Screening of student work. Group critique and discussion.