Title Sequences in After Effects

The final projects all seem to be well underway. As I had specified that I wanted to do post-production or more specifically I DIDN'T want to do pre-production, my life has been a little quiet for a week or so. (Just time to fit in a quick cold and some quality time feeling sorry for myself.)

Pete, who is the producer on "The Library" film, has asked me to create a title sequence. He has a clear picture of what he wants and I hope I have done ok at interpreting his idea. Essentially he described a sequence where a curser appears on a blank screen before a simulated computer search begins and the word LIBRARY flashes up on the screen in as many languages as possible. The animation he described seems designed to be created in After Effects; lucky for me as this is the only programme I am confident (should that be competent) in using.

First problems first: the flashing curser. I began using a single line to recreate the text curser you see in Photoshop or Word. This worked ok, but it tended to glide across the screen as the word "searching" appeared. After a quick chat with Pete Felstead (our After Effects technician), he suggested using a block instead. This worked much better. The letters appear on screen using one of AE's text presets and I just had set up the curser's position keyframes to line up with the letter's appearance on screen. I say just, it was of course far more fiddly than I might have first predicted but it was really a case of working out before hand what the movements should be.

Next problem: the text. I used Google Translate to find the correct spelling, then had to bully Richard into setting up the right fonts so I could use Greek/Chinese/Arabic/Cyrillic/Japanese charecters. I chose a blue colour to fit with the INFORMATION sign in the film and to avoid the Matrix cliche of green computer text. I also gave it a bit of a glow.

I have tried a couple of textured backgrounds in the hope of giving the sequence a little more depth. I have about 4 versions at the moment and I think I have a favourite. However, I am not really too concerned about which one Pete choses or if he wants more changes. I have already learnt more about AE through this small project and for me that is the point. The only reason I want to continue using AE is so I can learn more and get better. These titles are for someone else's film and at the end of the day it's their choice which they use. There is always the possibilty that the titles won't work with the rest of the film (too soon to tell, the film is still at the early stages of production) but it won't break my heart if my work is scrapped.

I will try to get some test renders up on the blog, but so far it is defeating me.