After Effect Compositing + Visual FX Project

After Effects Visual FX + Compositing is our new After Effects project-based course featuring compositing and effects for feature films. The type of shots you will be working on run the gamut of the type of shots an artist would see on a sci-fi action film: From rig removal to matte paintings, cgi multi-pass to bullet hits, blood splatters, and explosions.

The course will cover multiple areas of visual effects post production - from camera tracking to cleanup, visual effects to keying, cgi and matte paintings. This will be a hard core compositing course covering a wide variety of applications, creative techniques, and more. If you're a compositor at heart, this course is definitely for you.

Course Content:
- Pull a challenging blue screen key with Keylight. Set the elements in place for skydiving comp: camera animation, atmospheric haze and clouds, basic spill and colour correction.
- Remove a chain towing a tank - smart ways to break down complex rotoscoping and incorporate the tracker and mocha AE.
- Sky replacement and plate cleanup on this long shot of a jeep driving off into the sunset.
- Blood and bullet hit effects for two unfortunate soldiers.
- The driving shot: rotoscoping and lighting for a realistic composition.
- Sky replacement and creating a smoke element.
- Explosion Enhancement
- Creating muzzle flashes for firing guns.
- Animating fluid in 2D.
- Some tricky compositing and a few final tips.

Lesson Structure:
Project-led practical exercises

Entry Requirements:
Students should have a working knowledge of After Effects, in particular, working with keyframes, understanding layers and 2D space. Students should be fluent in English.

Tutor:
Pierre Vella is an independent digital creative working in film, video and digital technologies. He is a founding member of MITA (Moving Image Training Alliance) and runs a series of training programmes in film and video post-production, web technologies and motion graphics in London and Cambridge.


General:
Each student will be provided with their own workstation and can discuss any specific areas of interest they may have toward the end of each day with the tutor.