Video Effects, Editing, Etc.

[Drewbacca]

I recently wrapped up my placement at 3am design in Toronto this past May, and I couldn't be happier with the atmosphere of the office, the people to work with and the work that's done. The company is just beginning to expand (from 2 guys to 5 guys) and they've offered me a full-time, well paying job out of school. Any graphic designer with proper knowledge of this industry knows that being offered a full-time position in a major city at a studio with a great rep and lots of connection is a huge coo, and an even better opportunity to learn precious secrets not taught in books or in classrooms. There is a catch, though.

My creative directors love my skills as a designer, they like my adventuresome attitude to design problems and how I don't mind trying things a little bit different from the rules if it works. They also like that I'm fast and proficient with photoshop, and especially illustrator. But this is an animation house, primarily, that incorporates design to produce commercials so before taking me on with a salary they want me to learn Flash, After Effects and Final Cut Pro. I know quite a bit of flash animating, but my knowledge of actionscripting is limited to presets (although I do know how to use labels) and I knew nothing of After Effects or Final Cut Pro. I figured that after 2 weeks I'd be a pro at both programs and be on my way to the design industry in Toronto.

I assumed AE would be harder to learn than Final Cut Pro (FCP), and boy how wrong I was. After Effects is a different working space entirely from a Photoshop or Illustrator, and the rules between spacial and temporal design change dynamically as you learn everything there is to learn. So I bought a book and now I'm semi-proficient with the program and was wondering if anybody did broadcast design? Broadcast design is what the industry I'm going into is apart of, and it's an extension of graphic design and advertising. From here I can do many, many avenues of animated or film work. I can learn cinematography and become a lighting guy, or become a primary photographer. I can also go into 3D work and become an animator, or modeller, maybe even working for Nintendo, or Take-Two, or *gulp* EA. So I'm excited, but the task is daunting.

After Effects is entirely subjective, like Photoshop, whereas FCP is more of a cut and paste job that helps you reduce file sizes of video. This kind of work will allow me to work for TV stations if I desire to and am good enough. AE is even more sophisticated with the advent of 3D space and linkage with Maya and 3ds (as I mentioned 3D above being a branch), but these are babysteps into an industry I hope to do after I'm done school (visual effects and 3D animation work).

So I was wondering if anybody here knew any tips, workarounds and general ideals that people should know about this stuff? I'm learning from the people who do motion picture graphics, are considered some of the best up and comers in Toronto, and are financially very stable. Now I'm finding myself decomposing title graphics in movies like The Wedding Crashers and Kill Bill. These motion graphics are simple, and something I can already do myself with a week's experience in this program. But then again, the same thing happened when I first learned about tracking, leading and typography. I began noticing errors on graphics I otherwise had no knowledge of.

[arjue]

Holy shit, you're like, the only guy I've heard of where a graphic design major wasn't a waste of time and money. Congrats.

no advice sorry...

[Drewbacca]

I'll put up those finals of the CD I designed tomorrow. I forgot about that until you posting just reminded me. I have to admit that I am where I am because of connections I made during school. I made a lot of friends in my tenure by just being nice and not stepping on toes.
My friend Dave knew someone at a design place. They got him an interview and he did his co-op placement with them. It just so happened that his bosses went to school and the guys (my bosses) from 3am, my place of employement to be soon enough, from here and there. They were looking for someone to do placement because they were looking to expand and figured giving a rookie a chance would be a great way to see what he or she could do without committing. So he gave me a heads up on the interview, but I had to get it, do it and then follow-up on it on my own, which is how it should be. (it was down to me and one other person from Sheridan College, which is a world renowned college for arts and animation and I got the job because I opened my browser and e-mailed them about it, and then picked up my phone and called them when they didn't get back to me right away). The boys liked me and here I am. I have to admit I'm a little giddy, but I know a lot of people who are employed now from my class (some in newspapers, some in design houses that do catalogues, others in companies like Sears, etc.)

I'm always preaching to get up and do shit in your life to people like diffusionx and Ironplant and gozen in #TNL. It wouldn't be good advice if I didn't try it out myself.

[Dolemite]

Good luck with the career, Andrew. Sounds like you got yourself some skills.

I use Photoshop and Illustrator all the time. Recently I've been teaching myself how to use Adobe Premiere Pro. Cool program, but I really need to upgrade my RAM to at least a gig or two to get the most out of it.

[Drewbacca]

Final Cut Pro = Adobe Premiere Pro. Once you learn one you know the other (I think nodes have a lot to do with it). It's just a matter of adapting your knowledge for the different menus and interfaces.

After Effects, which I'm learning right now in the chapters I'm doing as I type this, has a lot of features to help you edit your movie, but because everything is imbedded the file size doesn't shrink (the main are slide editting, overlay, ripple, track editting types 1 and 2) so I assume FCP and Premiere has this stuff going for it too.

If you ever make a movie, like I know arjue is doing, learning AE is a must. Animating your title graphic and credits professionally is easy as pie. The better the shots you have working for you (the directors physical output) as a source the better everything looks in the end.

The new movie with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, The Wedding Crashers, has a motion graphic title that I already know how to make. I can even make the appearance of 2d objects moving in 3D space (say something 2D orbiting your type) by splitting layers and using pre-comps to edit the paths and such. It's quite extensive but amazing to expose yourself to. I'm planning on buying Volume 2 of this book to go from intermediate to expert with all of the functions in the program explored.

But for my job purposes being intermediate is good enough.