Check out the new Blog Show featuring the most in-depth behind the scenes footage for our recent short 'Payment Plan'.

This blog show includes:

• Original Rough-Cut with Alternate dialogue
• Additional VFX additions
• Art of Hitting Sam in the face
• Workflow Tips

In this tutorial inject life into a still image by creating a 3d-looking camera movement and animate the movement of the smoke. We will also add realistic camera jitter and simulate a rack focus with dirt on the lens.

This tutorial was based on this recent test video that everyone seemed interested in so I put together this tutorial with all of my findings. Enjoy!

Watch Tutorial

Do you remember you're first date with After Effects?

In the year 2000 after reaching the limits of Final Cut Pro's compositing and special effects toolset, I decided to see other people. That's when After Effects came into the picture with her floating windows and layered timeline, we began spending many hours together. Some of the first stuff we did involved motion graphics, light rays, radio waves and many bad font choices.

The graphic above was part of a corporate video I did in February of 2003 for a tech company that loved high-tech catch phrases. I may try and dig up some even older work if I can find it. But, maybe it is better left forgotten :)

I imagine some of you started out as graphic designers and wanted to bring visuals to life or perhaps you were a video editor that wanted more control of graphics and FX... Do you remember when you first got into After Effects?

Here's a great action scene by a talented filmmaker I found on youtube. The fx are cool and the action is well designed. Gotta love his style and sense of humor too. Enjoy!

And ya, I'm pretty sure he used Video Copilot's Action Essentials 2 for a lot of the bullet hits and muzzle flashes but I must give the credit to the filmmakers for great compositing and integration.

Check out this other great movie scene.

After looking at some amazing pictures of the recent Volcano I was inspired to bring one of them to life. I wanted to animate a still image to make it look it was video shot from a moving helicopter. I added some Optical Flares and subtle camera shake to give it a little more life. I also used the liquify filter to animate the smoke over time as it plumed out. There are also some small falling ash particles created with particular.

The flying parallax effect is a little tricky but I'll see about making a quick tip or including it in the upcoming blog show.

Watch Sample Video