After effects

Motion tracking is the hardest in my opinion of the 4 effects i'm showing you. Once you've selected the clip you want to motion track you drag it to your timeline, then after that you add a mask over the face. When you have done that make sure the clip is at the start of the timeline, right click and click "track motion". a small collection of boxes appear on your screen, you then drag the crosshairs to the point to where you want the motion to be tracked. You then drag the smaller box over the crosshair, this is used as search regions, they make sure that the motion track is staying within the marked area. After you have done that a tracker panel will appear in the bottom right of the screen click the analyse forward button, every time you click it the clip will move one frame at a time, finish the whole clip and it will track where the crosshair is in every frame of the clip.  Now you have tracked it, now you need to put something there, so go to the lay

Muzzle flash is  a little bit harder to lens flare and green screening as there are more steps to do. First off you find the frame you want the flash to happen. I want it to be on this frame.  So to remind me that the frame is in a certain place i use a marker, so i go to the layer tab at the top and click add marker.  Then you to the layer tab again and click "new" then "solid". then a tab will come up, rename the solid "flash" and click okay.  After the marker is on the time line i search in the effects tab on the right for "Fractal noise" This is a television static effect that will become our lens flash.  After searching for the effect you click and drag it over the screen. You will then see something that looks like a TV static on the screen.  On your timeline you should see a line above your clip, this is the fractal noise.  On the left of the time line you will see this.  The one that says "flash&qu

Lens flare is one of the easiest effects to do. You don't need to do it in after effects as premiere pro has a lens flare tool available. In the effects tab you search for "Lens flare" after you find it you click and drag it onto the clip you want a lens flare on. Once the lens is on the clip, you use the effects tab on the left, and you click and drag the "X and Y" axis to where you want the lens flare to be. I wanted mine on the top right of the clip so i adjusted the lens to the lens to be at the top right. I personally wanted it be be a white lens flare but you can opt to change the colour of the lens flare to any colour you want.

This is basic green screening. The actor in question is standing in front of a green screen and i keyed out the green and put in a still image of some flats. I do this by searching for "Ultra key" on the effects tab on the right hand side of the screen.  I then drag the ultra key over the footage. After that i go over to effects control and i click the pipette, then click the green of the green screen, after that the green would turn to black.  After some color correction the whole green screen should be completely black.  I then choose a background i liked, the character lived in a council estate so i chose a run down looking council estate.  I then drag the image over the top of the clip in the time line, then it should be behind the actor on the green screen. Again after some adjust the image it should be filling the green screen. 

Hello and welcome to my little blog on the basics of after effects. In this blog i will be going through greenscreening, motion tracking, lens flare and muzzle flash. i hope this will help you in some way, enjoy!