Creative Calamities

I was scheduled to begin teaching a two-week course in Flash animation this week for teens, but the class was cancelled due to low enrollment. Drats!! But I’m scheduled for a second session and I created this over-the-top promo to stir up some interest and get my teaching career started.

The style of the piece is modeled after one of my favorite on-line teachers, Andrew Kramer of VideoCoPilot.net who has tons of free tutorials as well as (highly recommended) products for sale on his website (that’s where I got my music for my promo). Kramer makes the finished product so exciting that any student of motion graphics and visual effects will sweat blood to achieve the same, but rarely do they with Kramers videos on hand.

I also recommend Chris Georgenes‘ book, How to cheat-Adobe Flash CS5 (although I am using the CS3 edition). If you want to learn character animation he is one of the best having done Flash animation for broadcast TV. Check out his work at MudBubble.com.

Since I was a child I have wanted to do movie special effects.

I used to dream of making models that would be used in movies like Star Wars or creating latex masks and prosthesis that would be used in low budget sci-fi flicks. But when I grew up I became a graphic artist and packed those dreams away.

But technology has changed the game. People no longer need a million dollar computer to make movie magic. All one needs is a Mac or PC and software, though not cheap, affordable.

For the past few days I have been immersed in a project using Adobe After Effects.

And I must give credit where credit is due. I learned everything I know about After Effects from Andrew Kramer of VideoCoPilot.net. He has some of the best tutorials on After Effects out there and most are free! He also sells some cool things for the aspiring FX guys (or gals) and Motion Graphic artists as well.

I dug up a couple of pieces that I did earlier this year. It is ironic that one of the first pieces that I did was for a friend who’s kid is living his dream at the age of 12. He races Bandoleros around a track at speeds up to 80 mph and he isn’t old enough to have a drivers license!

I also linked to my first ‘movie’ . . . I had to start somewhere. I enlisted some guys that I worked with at the time and The Bullet tutorial from Video Copilot and I was off.

Dreams do come true. For some sooner rather than later.