Matt looking nervous...

From this weeks wedding! Matt looking nervous as he waits for Sarah at the aisle.

SYNC is OUT NOW!

Watch the new futuristic sci-fi short from HaZ Dulull, that I had the pleasure of working on!

Creating ambience in motion graphics

I've been working on the title graphic for the Rotolight BVE video, sometimes I can get going straight away with designing and animating however (and I presume this is due to getting up early to start working) I was stuck for ideas.. VideoHive is a great resource for re-made graphics sequences for After Effects, but they are also great for getting inspiration on how to create the atmosphere and effects for your own work. I spend a good half hour looking through the pre-made effects and gathered some ideas.

One key point I've found to make the graphics seem realistic, and to give it an ambience there are a couple of things you can do to make it more life like. Number one is to use a particle generator to create dust to naturally drift around the environment. The particles can be given physical attributes like gravity and wind, which makes the animation more realistic.

Number two, using light and lens flares; this leak of light appears to give the environment in which your text, graphics etc seem to be in a 3D space shot through a camera - these are naturally occurring when out filming and in our eyes, so it can be used too.

Number three; textures and patterns; for a graphic based (not so much vfx based) title, tiling textures and patterns to create a wallpaper background is visually appealing, as is only using a number of tones from a simple colour pallet.

Number four; interpolation and motion blur. Again just like in real life, our brains process the images we see at around 16 frames per second, and fills in the spaces in between. In graphics this motion blur needs to be added, to correctly interpolate the animation and blur of a subject or object. The local and global motion blur (bouncing ball) icons are easily found on the timeline so be sure to click!

Number five; depth of field. In cinematography the director uses the depth of field to move the audiences attention through the frame to reveal new parts, to uncover secrets and ideas. This can be done in motion graphics too, by using a Camera. When you have a camera in your composition, be sure to check 'enable depth of field' and to set your aperture to a low F stop (F/1.8 for example) and increase the blur amount. After Effects then generates depth of field using the camera settings; making objects close and far away from the camera blurred.

Here's a snap of the working-graphic for the title, for a cinematic look to the video I have also applied an anamorphic aspect ratio overlay. I might make some changes later, but for now it is off for comments and feedback. If you have any questions about the graphics or videography then give me a shout!

Mesmirizing fractals in After Effects

I've often pondered whether it is possible to generate geometrical, point and fractal graphics using algorithms in After Effects. Fascinated by expressions since starting in CS3, I have always experimented with different types of generation and control to create more organic motion graphics, and animate them. After learning and working with Trapcode Particular and Form, which specialize in amazing particle effects, I further played around with ideas and animations combining the particles with expressions, auxillary particles and physics to recreate a realistic particle graphic. I had varied success, but I still couldn't find a unique effect.

It has been a while since I stepped back into After Effects; I usually float between applications until I need to use them so I got myself back up to speed with AE and tried my hand back at fractals - not the ones generated by fractal noise or turbulent noise either.

After a couple of days experimenting (bearing in mind I am still working on my laptop, and not my editing supercomputer) I had got to grips with generating graphics, but with this technique the results are partly random generations so occasionally I end up with a result that is completely different to what I expected but looks fantastic! With the curves following Bezier, they look naturally pleasing too.

My fractal tests -[gallery ids="979,978,977,976,975,974,973"]

Fractal Noise does EVERYTHING in After Effects!

After finishing up the multi-camera edit of the John Sinclair Viper Madness video the other day, I have moved on to creating the graphics; title card, lower 3rds and credits in After Effects. I've used After Effects for about 7 years now, since CS3 so I've got to see it develop and grow over the years, just as my knowledge in motion graphics has too. I always find, if you're trying to create some kind of animated texture, no matter what it is, Fractal Noise will always have a solution.

To animate the title card, I added the Fractal Noise effect to a solid layer and changed the parameters so the fractal resembled smoke, using expressions to control the evolution over time. The result is perfect, simple and easy!

What's all this talk about work?!

Yep, lots of work talk today as I had a meeting at Glyn Technology School about producing a promotional video for the GLF schools conference! I didn't go to Glyn to study many years ago, but I heard about their Media department from Glen.. So I wrote up a proposal offering workshops for media students interested in getting into the video and broadcasting industry!

That however is a side note to today's events! I'm just about to send off the project breakdown for the video, I've racked my brains and done a load of research into the primary and junior schools that are part of The Glyn Learning Foundation in the surrounding area, to include in the video. Fingers crossed it gets the go ahead as it will keep me busy for the next month!

The school is taking advantage of the awesome 10% discount I'm offering on all productions until the 15th of November so if you want to save then get in touch!