Filmmaker's VFX Guide

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Is it still worth it to learn After Effects in 2022?

You may wonder.

The answer is simple - YES.

Why is that?

Because special effects are still new. Not for us filmmakers, but for the audience, hence our customers. They are still wowed by them.

You make a clean transition between shots. Their reaction - "Wow, what kinda magic is that? 🤯"

You animate a logo. They: "How did you do that? It's wonderful 😍"

🔴This is your sign to learn VFX!🔴

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Last week I had a call with my business mentor.

I asked how to stay afloat during the recession.

Here are 4 strategies we talked about.

1. Make yourself visible but NOT everywhere.

Where are your customers? YouTube? Pinterest? LinkedIn? So why are you posting on Instagram? ;)

Focus on the right social media.

2. Stand out among the competition.

If you are like everyone else, customers will choose the cheapest one from the group.

So stand out! Learn different skills than the rest of them know.

After Effects will be an excellent choice.

3. Customer diversification.

Customers are going to cut extra expenses i.e. video ads. So you can't work with one type of client anymore.

Be open to different niches than your usual. Mainly working with entrepreneurs? Get to small businesses too.

3. Money diversification.

Think about creating your own digital product to make a passive income.

Maybe a course about mobile video? Or how to shot real estate videos and make $$$?

The exclusive paid group on Discord for video editors only?

What’s your recession strategy? 🤔

Is After Effects good for beginner filmmakers?🤔

“I'm a newbie, is After Effects for me?”

Never had a camera in your hand or never edited even the simplest of videos (you know - a few cuts, slap on a music and you're done)?

Then you're probably better off learning editing and shooting basics first.

🔴The rest of you are perfectly equipped for your new journey in After Effects.🔴

Knowing how to edit a really simple video in Premiere Pro or Final Cut is everything you need to get started.

A lot of things work the same way - we have cuts, transitions, layers etc. The difference is - in AE there is SO MUCH MORE you’re able to do.

Lots of my students were intimidated by AE’s interface at first. But as soon as they learned what all the buttons were for, they started creating amazing effects!

Btw. I thought I was a pretty fast learner, but then I noticed that few of the members started applying what they’ve learned a few weeks or even days since starting the course. ( .ignatowski , I’m looking at you guys 😁).

Of course the more experience you have both in video editing and in shooting videos the easier you can come up with use cases for After Effects in your projects.

And these are literally endless.

But if you’re new to video, don’t let that discourage you - you can do just as well if you put enough effort in!

And yes, there will be an effort - no course, teacher or mentor will learn it for you.

You need to spend some time on trial and error to figure out what the program is really capable of - but that’s the fun part!

8 mistakes you probably make if you’re an After Effect beginner.

❌Not turning on the autosave every few minutes!
Because you know, ADOBE.

❌Bringing the whole project into After Effects from Premiere Pro instead of chunks of it.
This is what we have the dynamic link for. It is super inefficient and really hard on your machine to bring everything over. Just make cuts around the scene you’re trying to enhance, select the clips you want, and right click -> Replace with AfterEffects composition. And you’ve got yourself a small ‘mini’ project linked to your Premiere Pro project.

❌Forcing fancy zoom transitions even when they’re not needed.
Not gonna judge you - I did exactly the same thing when I started. But - it really looks cheesy. Just make a transition when it makes sense, don’t force it! Let it help the story

❌Being scared of expressions.
(so small snippets of code that help you animate your effects). Trust me, they’re super helpful and they’re not really hard! And you might just like coding here and there!

❌Not learning the interface first.
You’ll waste a LOT of time trying to figure out a program while learning a new effect at the same time. Especially if your interface or keyboard shortcuts are not exactly the same as the person’s showing you the effect. If you know the interface and how the program works you can focus on principles and creative process instead of trying to copy every mouse click.

❌Not learning how the views and cameras work in AE.
These are especially nasty when you try to figure out WHY your project does not render exactly how you’re seeing it on your timeline. You might just be on the wrong view!

❌Blindly following tutorials/going on tutorial spree.
Watching how others make cool effects is not going to make you a better editor, trust me. Come up with an effect and try to find a way to make it happen - this is the best way to learn I know of.

❌Not having enough patience, giving up too quickly.
AE is sometimes frustrating, trust me I KNOW, but if you stick with it - the better you’ll feel about yourself and eventually - it will reward you with more unique and fun projects to take on!

So WHEN should you learn After Effects? 🤔

There is no ‘bad’ time to learn After Effects. 😎

It primarily depends on your willingness to learn and ability to spend some time experimenting.

Ideally, before starting to learn AE, you’ll have some basic knowledge on filmmaking and editing - like what are cuts, frame rates, motion blur and how to put together even a simple clip - all of this you can learn quite well within a few days.

Other than that - you can pick up AE at any point of your career.

It will be great at the beginning of your filmmaking adventure as you’ll be able to keep in mind things you (or someone) will be able to fix in post production.

Or new things to offer to your client, even if you can’t do them yourself, yet. You can simply know what you can outsource.

It’s also a fantastic tool to learn as an experienced filmmaker to broaden your offer.

And since you already know how to create videos, you now have all the time to focus on the creative side of things and not let the technicalities get in your way.

Because of your experience, you’ll also know about common issues that you’ll be able to decide to either leave in the original shot and remove in post or simply remove them from the shot, if they’d take too long to fix.

To sum up - if you’re either a new filmmaker or experienced veteran, After Effects is a great addition to your filmmaking arsenal that should not be overlooked. 😁

You don’t really NEED to know Photoshop to start learning After Effects, but it can be helpful!

If I try to explain to someone ‘What is After Effects?’ I just simply say ‘It’s like photoshop, but for Video’.

While there are obvious differences, there are a lot of similarities between them, and since they’re both owned and made by Adobe, they even have similar functions! (Like content aware fill, layer system, blending modes etc.).

When would you use Photoshop as After Effects editor?

A very common use case for After Effects is object removal. And the simplest form of removing an object is to make a screenshot, remove the object in Photoshop and then take back this cleaned up frame and track it onto the video so it matches the movement.

Why not remove it in After Effects?

Well as cool as the clone stamp tool and content aware fill are in AE, the PS counterparts are WAY more effective and flexible.

So if you want Photoshop to be a helpful tool in your pocket while editing, just look for tutorials that teach you how to remove an object in Photoshop, and that’s 95% of everything you need to know. The remaining 5% would be something like layer management and how to work with client’s graphics files if you’re working on a motion graphics job for them.

So to sum up - you don’t need to know Photoshop, but if you want to have a really neat tool for some specific cases - learn how to remove things from a picture!

Click to see a few photos I’ve edited in PS. (Before editing videos I did some photography as a hobby)