The Missing Video: Sonicfire Pro + After Effects

A few years ago, SmartSound commissioned us to create video training on how an editor or motion graphics designer could start in their Sonicfire Pro intelligent stock music software to select a soundtrack for a commercial, edit the source clips in After Effects (or any NLE, for that matter) to match the music, and then go back into Sonicfire to massage the music to work better with the now-edited video and voiceover. This video is theoretically still available on SmartSound’s web site, but has become hard to find since they updated their site to tout their latest version (SFP5). As we think it still contains some very useful advice on how one can work more effectively with music and video, we got permission to re-post it here. Although it is specific to Sonicfire and After Effects, the concepts it contains have broad application (especially the middle section “Spotting and Editing to a Soundtrack”). Click the PLAY VIDEO link below to view it.

The content contained in the CMG Blogs and CMG Keyframes posts on ProVideoCoalition are copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

On Artbeats.com: Grayscale Shootout

There are many ways to convert color footage into a grayscale shot - and they are certainly not created equal. Perhaps most surprising is that the time-honored technique of removing all of the saturation from an image can produce unpleasant visual artifacts. In this article on Artbeats.com, we run through our favorite techniques in After Effects, Final Cut Pro, and Motion for deriving a pleasant grayscale image.
Click here to download the PDF of “Grayscale Shootout” from Artbeats.com.

By the way, this is the article I blogged about earlier which nearly drove me crazy: the same effect can have different names in these programs, while different effects can have the same name. It’s always worth taking the time to test and explore, rather than taking a result a face value.

The content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

After Effects Apprentice Video Tutorial #4

We’ve recently released After Effects Apprentice (2nd Edition). The DVD-ROM that comes with the book includes an hour and a half of video tutorials that provide gentle introductions to major features inside After Effects, such as text and expressions. In this fourth video, we show how to master Text Animators, including Range Selectors, the secret to creating cascading animations, and more. Click on the Play Video link below, and enjoy! (For the previous video on how to create and typeset text, click here.)

(Note: For those who are hearing-impaired, lynda.com has added Closed Captioning to these tutorials. They are available here. We are also in the process of creating video training for all of the After Effects Apprentice lessons; they will also appear on lynda.com. If you do not have a lynda.com subscription, click here for a free 7-day pass.)

After Effects Apprentice was designed for students looking to learn After Effects from scratch, as well as those who do not use AE full time (such as editors or web designers). It starts gently with an introduction to keyframing, and progresses through the important features (such as masks, mattes, effects, text, audio, 3D space, shape layers, expressions, parenting, and building advanced hierarchies of compositions) until you end up keying, stabilizing, and compositing a shot in high def. The second edition has been fully revamped for After Effects CS4, and includes integration with Photoshop CS4 Extended and Flash Professional CS4.

The content contained in After Effects Apprentice - as well as the CMG Blogs and CMG Keyframes posts on ProVideoCoalition - are copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

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