After Effects Course and Compendium by Ben Goldsmith
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#1. "RE: After Effects Course and Compendium by Ben Goldsmit" | In response to Reply # 0
Mon 12-Dec-22 08:14 AMThank you for taking the time and effort to try out After Effects.
I'm learning how to edit video's on my Mac using Final Cut Pro X. Lots to learn, however I've found some good instructional videos on YouTube.
After your experience with After Effects, I will follow the Kiss rule, and keep it simple - less aggravation!
Cheers!
Frederic in Montréal
Nothing ventured-nothing gained!
https://www.instagram.com/frederic_hore
https://www.instagram.com/remarkable_odysseys/
https://www.instagram.com/freds_train_odysseys/ -
#2. "RE: After Effects Course and Compendium by Ben Goldsmit" | In response to Reply # 0
Tue 13-Dec-22 12:53 PMI objected to the particular book. But, I've used After Effects for some time now,, and it does things that I can't do with a video in Premiere Pro. For example, I had a video of a bird bobbing up and down on a branch. It was such a windy day that even my camera and tripod were moving. I tried to apply Warp Stabilizer in Premiere Pro but things still kept moving around. I moved the image to After Effects and selected just the trunk of a tree to stabilize. This did the job. The clip showed this bird in the wind, clinging desperately to a branch, but the trunk didn't move. I couldn't have saved a great clip without After Effects. You can see that Video here; it's the kingfisher segment:
I think the best book to learn After Effects is the Classroom in a Book version, reviewed here:
https://www.nikonians.org/forum/topic/195-2424-2424/adobe-after-effects-2022-by-lisa-fridsma-et-al-
#3. "Just fabulous!" | In response to Reply # 2
Tue 13-Dec-22 02:15 PM | edited Tue 13-Dec-22 02:41 PM by voyageurfredConrad, your wetlands video is just fabulous, on all levels!
Good drone footage, smooth pans and outstanding audio too! You must have used a good shotgun mic to pickup the variety of bird calls. Your music sound track was on the mark too. A selection from your music library, or from a music licensing site such as Epidemic Music?
I see what you mean by how using After Effects helped stabilize the King Fisher picking away at his meal - the trees behind him were really moving in the wind!
One last question - were you using a dedicated Hi-Def video cam, or a DSLR/Mirrorless to record the birds and scenery? It's very sharp and clear!
Let me master FCP, then I will look at After FX.
Thank you again for the tips and info.
EDIT - I read your response to a query on YouTube about how you record your sound with a parabolic mic. Superb!
I use a Sennheiser MKE600 electric condenser super cardioid with a dead cat windscreen mounted on my D850 camera's flash mount - I've found it to be very effective and sensitive too.
Cheers,
Frederic in Montréal
Nothing ventured-nothing gained!
https://www.instagram.com/frederic_hore
https://www.instagram.com/remarkable_odysseys/
https://www.instagram.com/freds_train_odysseys/
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#4. "RE: After Effects Course and Compendium by Ben Goldsmit" | In response to Reply # 0
Wed 14-Dec-22 08:11 AM
Frederic
As you noted, I used a parabolic mike rather than a shotgun for most of the shots in this video. I was shooting with my D850 and a 500 mm lens. At distances over 100 yards the shotgun doesn't pick up sound well.
The music came from a library called Freeplay Music, which licenses you to download and use music for YouTube videos (and a few other things) for free, provided you give the licensor the right to monetize the video. Unfortunately, they seem to be having problems with their website and I was unable to download my last selections. I hope they come up again because they had a large collection and an easy to use interface.
I've tried to use a dedicated video camera for video, but I preferred the Nikon because of my collection of lenses and the better control over depth of field. It does mean using ND filters to slow things down to 1/60 of a second, and I've had to add other gadgets to help me in shooting, but it's still cheaper than investing in something like a RED and buying new lenses, and less bulky when you are carrying gear into the woods.
As you noted, I used a parabolic mike rather than a shotgun for most of the shots in this video. I was shooting with my D850 and a 500 mm lens. At distances over 100 yards the shotgun doesn't pick up sound well.
The music came from a library called Freeplay Music, which licenses you to download and use music for YouTube videos (and a few other things) for free, provided you give the licensor the right to monetize the video. Unfortunately, they seem to be having problems with their website and I was unable to download my last selections. I hope they come up again because they had a large collection and an easy to use interface.
I've tried to use a dedicated video camera for video, but I preferred the Nikon because of my collection of lenses and the better control over depth of field. It does mean using ND filters to slow things down to 1/60 of a second, and I've had to add other gadgets to help me in shooting, but it's still cheaper than investing in something like a RED and buying new lenses, and less bulky when you are carrying gear into the woods.
G
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This book consists of a set of practical exercise tutorials, using After Effects and assets downloaded from the publisher’s web site. That’s the course part. Then there is the compendium. That’s more like a manual, although I found it to be a less than complete, lacking even an index in the on-line version.
The problem is with the exercises. The best texts devote a lot of space to showing you where the various switches and buttons are located. Unfortunately, not only did Goldsmith not spend enough time with the interface, but, in the electronic version, some of the illustrations were too small to see and could not be enlarged. As a result, even where there was a simple instruction, it often took me many minutes to find the right button or menu. If I hadn’t already used After Effects, I might never have found those buttons. In a few instances, I had to refer to another publisher’s book to understand the author’s instructions. Sometimes I ran through the same exercise several times trying to figure out what the author wanted me to do.
I finally got to a place where the book told me to apply a certain preset to a project. I could find no explanation in the book of how to do that. After spending almost three hours trying to figure out how to apply this single step, I gave up in frustration.
That’s a long way of saying this is a poor book for a video editor to learn how to use After Effects.