Assignment 3, After Effects Techniques

While creating the music video for ACDC’s ‘T.N.T’, I used various techniques in Adobe After Effects. These techniques included use of layers, audio placement, camera and image movements, opacity (for fading), image scaling, film grain effects, colour correction, gamma adjustments, lightning effects and the CC Light Burst 2.5 effect.
When using layers, placing audio into the composition and creating camera and image movements, I came across the same sorts of problems. I had to make sure all layers were in the correct order to ensure that nothing in the video was appearing over the top of other images and video when it shouldn’t be, etc. Camera and image movements were much of the same with ensuring they all came at the correct time and were positioned correctly. They were also very important as, for example, getting the lightning bolts that shoot out of the guitarists’ hands as they play needed to be positioned and animated correctly for it to give its desired effect. A large job was ensuring that the audio and video of the composition lined up correctly. This was difficult as the audio was off a studio recorded track and the video was of a live version of that recorded track. This caused different timing between the two as no band can perfectly recreate a recorded song live. I lined these up as best I could, but, in some areas, there are still problems with this as some places were pushed back out of synchronisation when the final composition was compressed.
When going between the live performance and the cartoon scenes of the music video, opacity controls were used the fade these scenes in and out of each other. This created a much smoother transition between the different scenes of the video.
Film grain, colour correction and gamma adjustment techniques were used throughout different areas of the music video to give the video its mood and style. Without using these effects, areas of the video would be lacking some of the ACDC old school rock ‘n’ roll feeling.
Lightning and CC light burst 2.5 effects were used in many areas of the video to give it its style and impact. In scenes with heavier guitar riffs, lightning effects were used on the band members to emphasise the power of the band’s performance. These effects were also used in some cartoon scenes of the music video with the band appearing on screen and in one area when there is a sudden change of mood. This was also simply for impact value and keep the viewer entertained as well as display the mood of that area of the video.