Introducing: After Effects

April Arevalo
- ITA Tech Instructor -

After Effects is a complex program that has endless possibilities of what can be created. I tend to focus a lot on text, not just what the text means but also the aesthetic feel of the text. This session I wanted the students to become familiar with the navigation and some of the functions of After Effects. The plan for this session was to give the students a basic structure of how to do a space warping text. Once the structure was complete, the students had the freedom to enhance their animation with a variety of options.

Although I felt the structure was confusing at times the students had no trouble in asking for clarification and getting back on track. Because of the complexity of this software, I had to be pretty strict about exact values for many parts of the project. However, the students were clever and had their own interpretations. They successfully came up with different text paths, styles, and compositions. This picture is a sample of a movie title as it enters the time echo effect that causes it to look like it is warping.

Once the structured part of the lesson was complete and the students were introduced to backgrounds with masks and the particle world the creativity really began to flow. Approaching these two elements in more of a broad sense while still highlighting major components really played to a key aspect when using After Effects. Creating effects that are visually engaging in this program calls for experimenting or simply just playing around with the effects. The difficult part is that it requires a lot of computer processing power, so it can be a little slow going to experiment and see the results right away.

As the students dove into adding backgrounds and different particle elements it became clear that the structured part was needed and that this freedom would add another level of complexity to what the students had already made. This student made something simple look very cool and colorful.
Overall the students engagement, curiosity, patience, and creativity really made this session more than I had ever anticipated. Hopefully since this was the first session ever to use the program After Effects when other sessions are offered the students will be excited to learn and create what ever the focus of that session happens to be.

Back to School Technology Preview...

This year at the IT Academy, students will have the various opportunities to enjoy and learn about all kinds of things!

Here is a list of some of the things we have in store for the Technology Labs:

Poster Mosaic: Each student creates one piece of a whole illustrated poster!
"Campfire Tales": Creative storytelling through digital audio!
Social Justice Social Media: Students bring a cause and learn how to effectively educate others about what they care about!
Self-Portrait: Illustrate your self or your friends in creative ways!
Accessibility and Assistive Technology: Creative journey into how technology can help in many, many ways!

Using AfterEffects in Post-Production: Learn ways to use AfterEffects to adjust the video you've captured and add the subtle visual qualities that can transform the viewer experience. 

Space Text: Moving typography in film using AfterEffects!
Going Green: An exploration of the green movement in technology!
Hack This:  Not that kind of hacking... learn to make technology work for YOU in ways it wasn't necessarily designed for.
Data Visualization: Learn about the unusually fascinating and exciting world of visualizing data!
Audio Equipment Virtualization: Using virtual synthesizers, drum machines, patch cords, and effects racks -- ON A BROWSER! http://audiotool.com/app
Polyvore Magazine Layout: Learn some of the tricks of the trade in magazine page layout, using a super cool and fun website! http://www.polyvore.com/

Commercial Fun! Make short (50 seconds or less) commercials, focusing on storyline and product placement.
How DOES that work? Ever wondered how that worked? Learn some tools to find out!

It's going to be quite a semester! Keep looking out for future updates and see the amazing work of our students as these workshops unfold!

Dear Many Uses Students, Thanks for a Great Audio and Video Day

Ann Tran
- ITA Tech Instructor -

The third day into The Many Uses of Computer Camp started with the students discussing their favorite genre in music. A lot of the students listened to Rock, Oldies, Hip-Hop, and R&B.

Then, they immersed themselves into a free music creation program called "Roc" on aviary.com to compose two measures of rhythm starting with a kick drum, snare, and various other instruments. All of the students, with or without musical background, had their own unique beat. After, they used Sony Acid to add a bass line and record a voice over. In the voice over, the students composed a thank you note to the ITA students and staff for being accepted into the program.

With their audio good to go, the students dived right into Adobe Premiere, a video editing program. After an hour, the students were able to piece the video together with pre-filmed shots of the first couple days of them at ITA!

In only three short hours, the students transformed into music producers and video editors! It was a ton of fun!!

NOTICE: Video coming soon!

Motion Pictures Camp - Day 2

Luis Perez
- ITA Tech Instructor -

We started the day off by having one of our instructors, Tony, give a lecture based on the History of Film and how it impacted the United States. He talked about famous stars such as Charlie Chaplin, John Barrymore, and Florence Lawrence. He also talked about what goes into production and the seemingly endless roles and positions to fill, from makeup artists to screenwriters. It all served to paint a more in depth picture of film for the students.

With gained knowledge and practice, students were given more time to finish their "ambiguous dialogues", which required a little bit more filming and quite a bit more editing. During this time each group of students could leave the class room with their assigned instructor to film in a different location or in the same location they chose yesterday. Instructors made sure that the students realized that there was always more they could do, to get that perfect shot. Film is in a constant flux of re-shooting and re-editing.

The students then went back into the labs and added pictures to their videos, along with extra sound effects and titles to get even more hands on with Premiere.

After a given break, students all gathered into one of the labs to be introduced to this year's Blitz. The Blitz is a project that groups of students do along with an instructor based off a theme, and this year's theme is "All Dressed Up, and No Place to Go."

Note: The theme for the Blitz is really only to get some ideas about it, but in the end, the films may stray from the Blitz due to time restrictions :)

In no more than 24 hours time, the instructors will write and direct a film with the help of their student collaborators, all while sticking to their theme. The students have 15 minutes to talk with their instructor to plan out what they wanted to do and how they are going to get it done, whether that meant planning a script or collecting props for the shoot. Either way, the Blitz is sure to cause a very hectic and fun day tomorrow at Motion Pictures Camp!

2011 Motion Pictures Camp off to a great start!

Today marked the start of the Sophomore Motion Pictures Camp.

In the early morning, students showed up for their first introduction into film making including a range of topics from cinematography to editing to acting. Classes were separated into two halves, so each student could focus in on a particular skill in acting or directing.  

Activities sought to provide the basic opportunities to be creative whether through improv acting exercises or the details of shot composition and the editing essentials of Adobe Premiere. After a short break, the two halves were brought together to collaborate on short "ambiguous dialogues." These are scenes in which all the groups have the same very simple, confusing dialogues and they need to work on their acting and planning skills to make it make sense to the audience. In other words, their interpretation is key to the success of the exercise. We did this in order to not only build their skills, but to create a sense of the team environment, and be a safe outlet for creativity in film making.

It was a lot to digest in a short period of time, but the students were up to the task and getting involved with their projects in preparation for their final films.

We hope we can post some of these dialogues tomorrow, when we expect to have them finished!

Video Commercials -- Choice Session 2

On December 4th and 11th, one choice session was a unit on making video commercials, giving the students a chance to learn something about the art of advertisement. It was good to see that we had an almost 100% attendance, considering the weather, and everyone was bright-eyed and ready to get some video editing done!

We started with a brief primer on advertising concepts, with the students learning about brand recognition and the necessity of economy of information. Commercial makers don't have a lot of time to get their point across to an audience, especially due to cost to buy air time, so we really wanted to enforce a strict time limit on their projects. We followed the lesson with some examples of famous commercials, including the 1979 Mean Joe Greene Coca-Cola ad and the 1984 Macintosh commercial. We talked about the specific principles involved in each ad--what worked, what didn't, what kind of effect the commercial had, etc.

Here's the Coca-Cola ad:


And, the Mac ad:


With all of this information to arm them, the students launched into their projects. To leave enough time for the 11th Annual Holiday Luncheon, the morning session had twice as much time as the afternoon session did, so the afternoon session was really under the gun when it came to their work.

As a result, the morning session went a little higher on concept, with a lot of recording being done, but not a lot of editing. The afternoon session performed with flying colors, all three groups finishing their project by the end of the class. Yay for them! Impressive work!!

Here are the projects that the afternoon class completed:







Great work, everyone!

Sound in Film

Sound in Film is a class that aims to improve all aspects of audio in student films. Students learned about professional film sound, multiple sound layer editing, techniques to help achieve common audio effects and how to put it all together on screen.

Students came into this course knowing little to nothing about professional audio editing. They were first introduced to professional examples of sound design. Here are a couple examples from the film Star Wars.

Students learned how to film dialogue with multiple angles and using multiple takes. This allows for easier audio editing in post-production. Then, the students learned about ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) or overdubbing all the dialogue in a film. They learned how to use high quality microphones to produce better sound than what is recorded from internal camera microphones. In this case we used the Zoom - H2 audio recorders, which are a great product and reasonably priced!

The students were then challenged to create their own film project, using their own scripts. Here's the catch: all the audio had to be created in post-production. This means that no audio captured during filming was allowed to be used "as-is." There were 4 groups and only 2 of the groups considered their projects complete. It was a challenging task that required hard work and dedication. It also required time, and sometimes we run out of that fast. And, although some of the final projects didn't turn out in the end, the learning along the way was invaluable. Students also learned the hard work and pre-production required to finish a project for a deadline.

Here is Clara and Lucy's final project, a trailer for an original gripping feature film called Code Red. It's an upcoming thriller (not really) about foiling a planned attempt to assassinate the president. (Spoiler Alert!) We asked, and he ends up being unharmed in the movie.

Thanks for reading!

Film Beginnings: Viewing "Nosferatu"

Film Beginnings was a Choice Session where I, Tony Sanchez, go over the humble beginnings of film-making. We go over significant advances in film-making technology from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Students get to watch clips of mostly short silent films, like the first video below, and some early "talkies," like the second video below. Hollywood and movie theater history were also addressed in Film Beginnings.

The students got the chance to view a film from the era which they've learned about, the 1922 horror classic, Nosferatu. This film fits in perfectly for this choice session at the end of October, because it is the very first incarnation of Dracula in a motion picture, ever. And, it's a silent film from the 1920's!

Halloween. Nosferatu. Silent films. Two classes... It was a good Saturday!

After watching the film, we had discussions that spanned a bunch of topics. We tackled questions such as, why would this be a scary film for the time? What has changed since this film was made, and what seems to be the same in Hollywood? And, students finished off the day with writing a blog entry about what they learned and what they make of all this.

We all talked about how we like to watch this type of film, but that it certainly can bring about sleepiness. We felt it too bad that our current culture is all about fast-moving films that focus more on special FX rather than straight-up acting talent. It was also pointed out that most of us only encounter older films in the classroom, rather than at home, or in the theaters.

Morning Highlights:

The Film Beginnings Saturday double-header started out with the sleepy freshmen and juniors. Though groggy and silent, they showed that they were interested by being attentive. They also asked great questions during the lecture.

Nosferatu racked up half the class, but was worth every minute. The post-screening discussion was riveting. There was a mixed response to the film, but in the end, students appreciated its importance. Carrie brought up Nosferatu's ears, Jon made good observations about some of the effects and techniques that were used in the film. Everyone was riffing off each other and holding an intriguing discussion. Arissa was the only one who dozed off for a few minutes during the film.

Afternoon Highlights:

The sophomores and seniors were in class the second half of the day. Their attentiveness during lecture was not as high as the morning class, but they were picking up on most of the same points (similar questions on similar material).

Nosferatu was widely accepted by the students, but they were more on the negative side. I heard Thuy Dan say "wow, that was a LONG movie!" but really it was only an hour and a half long... There were a bunch of late arrivals today, due to many Seniors taking the ACT in the morning, but the discussion went pretty well. In the afternoon, we had two dozers, but everyone got the point of the movie.

-Tony Sanchez

PS - If you have a netflix account, you can stream a version of Nosferatu to watch for yourself!