Edit+your+video

Editing Your Movie In Adobe After Effects (AFX)

This is how you edit your video using After Effects. Start by firing up AFX (as it will be referred to from here) and start a new project.

1. Import your video by double clicking in the composition window.



2. drag your footage onto the icon as shown to make a new composition



3. From the top menu bar, select Composition -> Settings to open the settings window.



From here you will see all the elements you can change. Add 30 seconds to your footage by selecting the Duration box. You can edit the timecode manually i.e. if your duration is 00:13:14 (13 seconds and 14 frames) you can change the 13 to 43 by selecting it and changing it. Alternatively you can select the whole contents of the box and simply type '+3000' which means add 30:00 or 30 seconds to what is currently there.



2. Now drag the top timeline bar - the time navigator end - all the way to the right. On bigger projects this allows you to just view sections of your piece, but for the purposes of this we need to see the total time of the composition.



3. Select the layer in the timeline as shown and press 'O' to move the timeline to the last frame in your footage.



4. Go to Composition -> Save frame as



This will take you to the Render Queue. this can be a little confusing as the render queue appears in the same place as the timeline we have been working on. but once you understand this and the tabs setup - its all straight forward. The render queue is where you output all your wonderful work. You can change virtually everything about your output here, but for the purposes of simplicity - lets just change the output file from a photoshop doc to a single JPEG to use for our hold.



5. Change the file type by clicking on the 'photoshop' text next to 'Output module'



select 'JPEG Sequence'. You can change the quality settings or leave as they are and click ok which will return you to the Render Queue as before.

6. From here - select the text next to 'Output to' as shown in stage 4 above. Settings should already be for JPEG, so we just need to save it to somewhere memorable and give it a memorable name.



Press 'Render' to render out your hold frame.



7. We now need to bring back in our hold frame. Double click the composition window as we did all the way back in stage one.



Select your hold frame to bring it into the composition.

8. Make sure you click your composition tab to bring your timeline back from the render queue.



Drag your JPEG still form the composition window into the timeline, but make sure it is dragged BELOW your footage. AFX creates outputs based on layers - we create compositions of these layers which allow us to put effects and the likes on top of footage. It is worth remembering this when making this project. If you put the still on top of your footage - you will only see the still. What we want to do here is put the footage on top of the still so that when the footage runs out - the still hold frame we have created shows. Imported footage is shown for the duration of that footage - a still however plays infinitely unless you tell it not to.



Ensure your layer order is correct with the footage above the JPG as shown. As you can see - the still you brought in runs to the end of the compositions new length. You can drag the timeline slider (the yellow/orange 'shield' shape which controls what you see in the view window) to see how this works. When you are ready - select your footage layer in the layer list and press 'O' to go to the end as in stage 3.

9. We are now ready to start adding our button graphics. First make sure you can see your footage. You can set the size of what you can see in the footage window by clicking the magnification ratio popup - here shown at 100%. You can select 'up to 100%' which will give the best fit for your window.



10. Now select the text tool here show as a big 'T'

and click in your viewing window in the general area you want the text to be. Any new layers automatically get put on top of all other layers in the composition, but thats ok - that is where we want it.



11. Now type in your text - this can be as simple as 'option 1' or something more related to the choice you want the audience to make - in this example, I am asking the audience to choose to follow one of two characters - Peter or Jane - so my options will be 'Follow Peter?' or 'Follow Jane?'. Our first option is 'Follow Peter?' so I type this here. You can change your font, size etc. here on the right of your view window.



12. As you can see - my text is too big and in the wrong position.

This isn't an issue - we can fix it here. First use the text tools above to get the text to a size that fits. You may need to keep going back over the next couple of steps to get everything in the correct position. In the text box - the 60px is the size of your text. The 3 lines with 2px next to them are a stroke I have added to the text to make it pop off the screen. The colour of your text and stroke are controlled in the 2 squares shown in the text box. The big white one here is the fill colour and the black square behind it with the hole in is the stroke colour. You need to make sure you have your text selected for this to apply.

You can change all these settings by selecting and typing in or you can hold your mouse button down over the numbers and slide left and right to go up and down in size respectively.

If you are having trouble. Make sure the text tool is selected - click on your text so that ou get the clashing cursor in your view window and press 'command (Apple) + A' on a mac or 'CTRL + A' on a PC to select all the text and try again. Have a play around and feel comfortable with what you are doing - this is meant to be fun!

13. To position your text, select your text layer from the layers window, and click the arrow to the right of the layer name to expand the options.

next, click the arrow next to 'Transform' to expand this and access the layer controlls

We now want to use the 'position' settings to put the text where we want it. The first set of numbers (seen here as 61.0) are the 'horizontal' position (left and right) and the second set (seen here as 62.0) are the 'Vertical' (up and down). Place your mouse over the first set of numbers and hold down your left button. Slide form side to side and you will see the numbers change as your text slides left and right in the view window. You can do the same with the vertical numbers. When you are happy with the position - just let go of the mouse. You may need to return to the text tools to adjust the size as you go. You can click the arrows next to the layers or controls to hide them if you need more space when you are finished.

14. We now need to make sure the text only appears after our movie has finished. we do this by using 'opacity'. First - select your footage layer and press 'O' to go to the last frame of our movie. Next __SELECT THE TEXT LAYER__ in the layers window. I put this in capitals as it is essential you switch back to the layer we want to edit - if you don't you will make all changes to the movie rather than the text layer and we don't want that.



15. If it is not already expanded, expand the transform selection by clicking on the arrow next to it (you may need to click on the arrow next to the layer name to expand this also if you 'collapsed' it earlier by clicking it). After expanding the Transforms selections you will see there is a setting for 'Opacity' this controls how visible the layer is.



By default this is set to 100% or fully visible. As in the previous step we are currently positioned at the very end of the movie we want our text to appear here - after the movie has finished playing.

Initially, we need to step back a frame to the last frame of movie. We want the text to be invisible on the last frame of your movie and appear on the very next frame after the movie has complete. We move back a single frame by pressing 'command (Apple) + left arrow' on a mac or 'CTRL + left arrow' on a PC.

Next we must make our layer animatable so we can control what it does at any point in time - in this case - 'appear at this point after the movie has finished'.

We do this by clicking the little stopwatch next to the action (the word 'Opacity'). This sets a 'key frame' and tells AFX we are going to animate this layer - more specifically - the visibility of the text.



Now click on the 100% and set it to 0% to make the layer completely invisible.



16. Your text will have disappeared form the view window. We now need to move forward a single frame by pressing 'command (Apple) + right arrow' on a mac or 'CTRL + right arrow' on a PC. Now select the current '0%' text for opacity and either type or slide up to 100%, and your text will return! You can scroll the time slider backwards and forwards in the timeline to see your text appear and disappear as it will when it plays.

17. We now need to repeat steps 10-17 to add more buttons.

N.B. You can quickly do this by selecting your text layer and pressing 'command + D' on a mac or 'ctrl + D' on a PC to duplicate your layer with all its settings. It is then just a case of selecting this new layer text and changing it (by double clicking the layer name), then manoeuvring it into a new position using the 'position' controls we looked at in step 13.



For this example it is assumed you have 2 buttons so will need to undertake these steps once more. We now need to add our button back ground graphics. This is almost identical to steps 10-17 but we will use 'solids' instead of text to act as our button background.

18. To create a nice background to your button, select Layer -> New Solid.



It will default to the same size as your composition (i.e. if your video is 1024 x 576px - the solid will be this size) so you may want to manually make it a bit smaller. You can also change its background colour which defaults to black.



19. Once you press 'ok' your video will be covered by the image. Make sure you have selected the 'arrow' select tool



and use the handles on the corners to drag it to size.



The 'solid' layer will have its own 'transform' controls as did the text layers already covered. You can use the 'position' inputs in the layer itself as we have already covered in step 13 to move your button around. You can either type these in or click your mouse over the x or y coordinate boxes and drag back and forward to move it.

20. If you are having trouble moving it to the correct place as it is over the top of your text, you can re-arrange your layers by dragging them around in the layer section (bottom left) to make sure it is below your text.





21. Once you are happy with its size and position, drop back one frame by pressing 'command +left arrow' on mac or 'ctrl + left arrow' PC to go to the frame before your text appears (where it is set to 0%), click the stopwatch icon and set the opacity of your solid to 0%. Move forward a frame ('command + right arrow' on mac or 'ctrl + right arrow' PC) to the frame where your text appears, and this time set your opacity to '40%'. This will give you a nice semi transparent background to relieve some of the harshness of your button.



Your button and text should now both appear at the end of your movie and hold for 30 seconds.

22. Do the same again for all your other buttons or just press 'command + D' on mac or 'CTRL + D' on PC to duplicate the layer then move this new layer into position under your other text, and that's the hard bit done. The rest is plain sailing.

23. We just need to render out our final movie now. Select Composition -> Make Movie.



This will open up the Render Queue we were introduced to in step 4 so this should look familiar. Every time you open the render queue a new 'job' is created - your job for the hold frame may still be in there. You can delete this if you like, or leave it. we will only be working on the new job we have created. The newest job is always at the bottom of the list. For clarity I have selected the old jobs and pressed 'delete' to remove them leaving only our current job. Old jobs cannot be re-rendered so its is good housekeeping just to delete anything apart from your latest job.



24. The setting options here are huge so I am just going to concentrate on this as a youtube project. First Select the 'Best Settings' text in Render Settings



In here you will find a huge amount of settings - we don't need to touch anything here - its just here to let you see what you can change if you wish.



25. Next, click on the text 'Lossless' next to 'Output Module'



This panel controls the format of your output movie.



Click the 'format' box which defaults to 'Quicktime' we need to select FLV (flash movie which is the basis of YouTube movie content) form the dropdown list.



If you have any audio in your movie - ensure you click the 'Audio Output' radio button at the bottom of this section. You can leave the settings as they are and click 'OK'



26. Finally, we need to give our output movie a name and decide where we want it to render to. Do this by clicking on the orange text next to 'Output to' in the render queue



Choose your name and location in the next popup box and press 'save'



27. Now hit 'Render' and we're done!



28.You are now an After Effects artist, and have covered the majority of the core principals of the package in making your movie. Have a cup of tea - you deserve it!