For many productions, including any number of feature films, Adobe After Effects has long ruled as the motion graphics tool of choice. With the recent release of After Effects CS5 (Creative Suite version 5), the app continues to grow in usefulness, including its new 64-bit roots.
You can learn specific video-centric details about rolling the app into your postproduction suite by taking the July 20th webinar Getting the Most Out of After Effects CS5. More info here.
I think that’s a wise investment (it costs $79) since the folks imparting the information are the husband and wife team of Chris and Trish Meyer. They are true pioneers of employing desktop apps in pro productions, and are probably the best-known AE trainers in the biz. Crish (a mashup of their first names and the name of their design studio) have a number of popular books on AE in their portfolio, as well as regular gigs on the training site Lynda as well as on the ProVideo Coalition site, which is sponsoring the event.
The webinar looks like it will mostly help experienced AE users, since it tackles new features such as the Roto Brush tool (for anyone doing rotoscoping, the ability to quickly separate foreground action from complex backgrounds is alone worth the cost of the program) and the updated version of mocha’s very slick planer motion tracker.
If you’re new to AE (you’ll learn to use the abbreviation in most cases), you might want to watch the interview of Chris and Trish on John Dickinson’s Motionworks site about how to break into the effects biz. There’s also a useful interview at Lynda, which talks about “where they came from, who inspires them, and what the future holds.”
