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Category Archives: Blog

  1. Reverse Shatter Tutorial by Harry Frank

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 17, 2009

    Just watched a cool tutorial by Harry Frank on creating a Reverse shatter effect. This is the end result:

    Reverse Shatter Effect from graymachine on Vimeo.
    You can see the tutorial here:


    No comments
  2. Can’t Make AENY This Month

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 16, 2009

    Hi Folks -
    I just want to apologize. I was scheduled to present at the next AENY meeting (May 28), but I messed up. I didn’t have my Hebrew and US calendar synchronized properly in outlook (darn you Microsoft!!). As it turns out, May 28th is a major holiday, so I won’t be able to attend. [...]


    No comments
  3. Early Morning Deadlines

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 14, 2009

    I used to think I knew what deadlines were, and then we had a baby. I work some ungodly hours which often brings me home late, so I cover the mornings with our daughter, Noa (hebrew for “motion”). My wife leaves early and comes home much earlier than me, so she takes evenings. I live [...]


    4 comments
  4. Tutorials at FinalCutUser.com

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 14, 2009

    About fricken time. I’ve been begging my buddy (And After Effects New York co-leader) Jim Geduldick at finalcutuser.com to get some video tips up on his site. If you’re a Final Cut Studio user, you should definately check these out.  Lots of cool tips including how to export a QuickTime video with a surround track.
    In [...]


    No comments
  5. The Force Field…

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 13, 2009

    The After Effects Force Field tutorial is done. The only thing keeping me from putting it up is an overnight compression job.  But here’s a video to keep you happy in the meantime…
    We’ll be covering how to create the forcefield itself, and some basic color corrections. The rest (camera shake, explosion) is for another time. [...]


    5 comments
  6. Magic Bullet Looks Commercial

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 12, 2009

    Hi Folks -
    I just finished working on an awesome commercial for Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet Looks. This was a ton of fun to do.

    Magic Bullet Looks – Helping you Tell your story from Red Giant Software on Vimeo.
    I wrote and directed it, and did some of the compositing, but all of the really [...]


    5 comments
  7. After Effects New York – May 28

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 09, 2009

    Hey there folks-
    Just wanted to let you know I’ll be presenting some cool motion graphics and compositing techniques at After Effects New York on Thursday, May 28.
    The meeting is FREE, and you don’t have to let us know a head that your coming. Just show up!
    At the time I write this, there is no info [...]


    2 comments
  8. After Effects Force Field

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    May 04, 2009

    For a long time I’ve wanted to do a force field tutorial. But I had trouble finding inspiration. I started to look around the web, and found this trailer for Halo 3:

    After watching that, I was inspired to find a way to create an effect  that didn’t feel random but that did have some organic [...]


    17 comments
  9. Digital Production Buzz

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Apr 30, 2009

    I just appeared on Creative Planet’s Digital Production Buzz, to talk about All Bets Are Off productions and Crowd Control. It was a lot of fun.
    Every once in a while I’m asked to do an interview – for some reason people think I might actually be interesting to talk to. If you know me, then [...]


    No comments
  10. Doug Medlock: The Deepest Voice You Definately Want to Hire

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Apr 29, 2009

    I’m working on a commercial and need to find a voice over actor.  In searching through Voice 123 (a great resource for VO talent), I found Doug Medlock, one of the deepest voices I’ve ever heard. He’s done plenty of ads you’ve seen on TV or heard on the radio.
    I’m not going to lie – [...]


    4 comments
  11. NAB – What it means to me…

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Apr 27, 2009

    Just got back from NAB, and boy are my arms tired. Actually, the NAB (The National Association of Broadcasters) show was really light this year. But the truth is, light or heavy on the traffic, I really do enjoy seeing my friends – especially the ones that live across the country, like Ko Maruyama, or [...]


    4 comments
  12. Big-Ass NAB sale on Crowd Control!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Apr 19, 2009

    Get 40% off on Crowd Control from 4/19/09- 4/26/09
    Hi everyone-
    I just wanted to thank all of you for your interest in Crowd Control. We at All Bets Are Off Productions hope you’re enjoying the library, and we thank you all for your support so far.
    This week I’ll be at NAB, and while Crowd Control [...]


    1 comment
  13. Getting Ready for NAB

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Apr 08, 2009

    Just some stills from a presentation I’m doing for Red Giant @ NAB, focusing on Trapcode Form -although it also uses particular, warp, and knoll light factory. Of course, the women in the image are from Crowd Control.
    I’ll be presenting this at 10:00AM on Tuesday Apr. 21, at the Red Giant Software booth SL2529H. Hope [...]


    3 comments
  14. Major Site Improvements Coming!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Apr 05, 2009

    Hi folks-
    Just wanted to let you know that we have major site improvements planned for All Bets Are Off Productions – specifically with the speed of the Crowd Control site. Over the last 3 weeks (since we launched Crowd Control) we’ve been receiving your feedback about the way the site works and what you want [...]


    3 comments
  15. Light Wraps

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Apr 01, 2009

    Not sure if I’m obsessed or just really bent on trying to help people get better compositing results, but if I can get these done before I head out for 3 weeks (2 for the holidays, 1 for NAB), I’m going to be putting out 2 tutorials on better Light Wraps. If you’re not familiar [...]


    1 comment
  16. Crowd Control Takes on Adjustment Lights

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Mar 30, 2009

    Eran Stern just did a great Creative Cow podcast tutorial on the subject of adjustment lights. And I’m proud to say that in it, he uses Crowd Control to help illustrate it. And if you’re more of a “Full-res” tutorial kind of person, it should be up this Friday in all of it’s full-sized glory.

    When [...]


    2 comments
  17. Andrew Kramer at After Effects New York

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Mar 27, 2009

    Last night, Andrew Kramer paid a visit to After Effects New York, the group I co-run with Jim Geduldick. We had an awesome turnout – over 300 people.  His training was, of course, fantastic. I especially enjoyed his use of Windows Paint to show some high-end compositing techniques (if you think I’m kidding  – I’m [...]


    13 comments
  18. Crowd Control is Here!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Mar 09, 2009

    OK folks-
    You’ve heard a few rumbling here, and our library of keyed out footage is finally here… but as of today, what was called “All Footage Keyed Out” is now called “Crowd Control.” 45,000 keyed out clips ready for use in all of your projects!
    This was a tremendous undertaking, and we at All Bets Are [...]


    17 comments
  19. All Footage Keyed Out!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Feb 10, 2009

    If you watch this week’s tutorial, you’ll see that I make a reference to a new product we’re working on bringing to you. A huge library of pre-keyed alpha footage – actors filmed on a green screen and then keyed out – so all you have to do is drop it into your projects.
    If you’re [...]


    18 comments
  20. If you subscribed to any of my RSS feeds…

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Feb 02, 2009

    Hi folks-
    If you subscribed to any of my RSS feeds, please re-subscribe. There was a bug in the feeds and it was fixed today. I want to make sure you get the most up to date tutorials…etc.
    Sorry for the trouble. the site is still in beta.


    1 comment
  21. That Baby DVD

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Feb 02, 2009

    You may have caught in one of my recent tutorials (Creating  looping Particle System) that I’m a new Dad.  In that tutorial, I mentioned creating a DVD to entertain my daughter Noa (now 6 months old).
    Well, I was contacted by an animator named Rob Wolf  to say that he had, in fact, made a baby [...]


    3 comments
  22. After Effects New York January Meeting

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jan 30, 2009

    We had an awesome AENY meeting tonight. I’m too tired to write a lot about it, other than to say that we had 2 great presenters…


    No comments
  23. Microsoft Comes Through

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jan 26, 2009

    I had a shockingly good experience with Microsoft tech support today. I was having trouble installing MS Windows XP SP3 (Adobe’s strong recommendation for CS4). No matter how many different  ways I tried, it would not install. There was some sort of permissions issue. So I did the unthinkable:
    I called Microsoft and asked for help. [...]


    10 comments
  24. My Students

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jan 23, 2009

    I love teaching. In my professional life,  nothing gives me more pleasure… with the exception of one thing: When I see some of the awesome work my old students are doing. Yeah, maybe I’m taking too much credit, but I like to think I helped. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
    “Billy Bombo” by Dan Opsol
    “Ants [...]


    2 comments