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Category Archives: Blog

  1. Crowd Control Kicks Off the Teen Choice Awards

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Aug 29, 2009

    Recently, our friend Harry Frank, of GrayMachine.com, used Crowd Control to kick off Fox’s Teen Choice Awards. You can see the clip being used right here, in the first few seconds. Yes, that vector-like artwork is actually a video clip that Harry manipulated in Adobe After Effects to work with the color palette and style [...]

    3 comments
  2. After Effects New York – August

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Aug 29, 2009

    Last week we had our 25th meeting of After Effects New York. I’ll say this with out hyperbole – it was awesome! First up was Mixtape Club. -  http://www.mixtapeclub.com Too technical for the arts, too creative for the sciences; Chris Smith, Jesse Casey, and Michelle Higa knew they had to work together as soon as [...]

    1 comment
  3. The iPhone 3GS as a Camera

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Aug 19, 2009

    I know things have been quiet here, but I can promise you we’re working on some big stuff. But even I need a vacation once in a while – so me and the family headed down to Florida for some R & R. Anyway, today I found myself surrounded by a flock of pink flamingos. [...]

    8 comments
  4. Motion Tracking and Stabilization in After Effects

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Aug 10, 2009

    If you’re doing any motion tracking or stabilization work, I strongly recommend you check out Pete O’Connell’s NEW Creative Cow training DVD: Motion Tracking and Stabilization in After Effects. Pete previously did a fantastic training DVD called Advanced Rotoscoping Techniques for Adobe After Effects. I could sit here and talk about how these DVD’s teach [...]

    3 comments
  5. The Daily Show

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Aug 04, 2009

    I’ve been doing this animation thing for a while, and while I’m not a fantastic artist, my one saving grace is that I work fast. Really, really fast. At least I thought so until I went to the Daily Show with John Stewart (my favorite show, and the only reason I take a few minutes [...]

    12 comments
  6. After Effects and Tron 1.0

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jul 30, 2009

    Watching the promo for Tron Legacy got me all excited and a little nostalgic. So today I played around in After Effects with Trapcode Particular 2, and came up with this. I smell a tutorial. End of line.

    12 comments
  7. Tron Legacy is Coming!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jul 29, 2009

    Damn! This trailer for Tron Legacy (AKA Tron 2.0) was released a few days ago, and I was too busy to notice. Why didn’t any of you tell me?! This is the sequal to a movie that got a generation of people buying computers, frisbees, and hockey equipment all at once (or was it just [...]

    1 comment
  8. The NY Yankees and Mets Call in Crowd Control

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jul 28, 2009

    I have founded my career and reputation on helping people. When we built the Crowd Control Library of Pre-keyd Alphastock Footage, it was an extension of that. It’s not something we can give away for free (except that we do), but we’ve tried our best to make it easy to buy and use so that [...]

    3 comments
  9. 50% off Crowd Control

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jul 21, 2009

    In honor of Harry Frank’s Particular 2 crowd scene tutorial, we’re giving 50% off Crowd Control so that you can re-create the effect. UPDATE: The sale is over. Use the code “particular2” when purchasing credits, and get half off the price. BTW – these are the 5 clips Harry used: # 00036_002_10 # 00155_001_58 # [...]

    2 comments
  10. Eran Stern: Blast from the Past

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jul 16, 2009

    A few days ago, my copy of “A New Solid” by Eran Stern arrived in the mail. It’s his new training DVD which includes nearly 8 hours of training. It includes all of his tutorials from the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast (including the project files), plus 2 hours of new training, unavailable anywhere else [...]

    7 comments
  11. Crowd Tutorial Coming Soon!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jul 14, 2009

    …But not from me. This one is from my good friend, Harry Frank of GrayMachine.com. Next week’s episode of Red Giant TV promises to be an amazing one  – it covers creating a crowd with Trapcode Particular 2.0. Building off of Harry’s work in the tutorial, I created this scene: A still image doesn’t do [...]

    9 comments
  12. Particular 2 Presentation + Tutorial

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jul 06, 2009

    AENY Aharon Rabinowitz introduces the new features of Trapcode Particular 2 from AENY on Vimeo. On June 25, 2009, I gave a presentation at After Effects New York on Red Giant’s Software’s Trapcode Particular 2 (not yet released). It included a 20 minute overview of some of the new features, as well as a 20 [...]

    12 comments
  13. Peel-Away Vortex Transition Coming Soon

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 30, 2009

    Hoo-Ah! Just finished recording the Peel-Away Vortex Transition tutorial for Red Giant TV. Hope to have it  edited and up for next Tuesday’s episode.

    8 comments
  14. After Effects New York – Ocean Water Presentation

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 29, 2009

    So… good news and bad news… The bad news first. The screen capture we did at After Effects New York, did not work out well. Now the good news… Today I sat down and gave the same presentation to… my computer. I just re-did the presentation – no editing, no planning, no nothing. It’s recorded [...]

    10 comments
  15. After Effects New York Wrap Up

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 26, 2009

    Alright – I am heading out the door for the weekend, but I wanted to do a quick wrap up of what I covered in my After Effects New York presentation: 1. Creating an Ocean Water Effect – using only tools found in After Effects CS3+ and no footage, I showed how you can create [...]

    10 comments
  16. New Ad for Crowd Control

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 23, 2009

    Just completed a marathon animation run to complete this 30-second commercial for Crowd Control. I did it in After Effects in under 2 days, pretty much from scratch. Believe it or not I spent more time on that logo build than on any other single section. Tried so many different things… With the exception of [...]

    No comments
  17. After Effects and Rendering for Flash with Alpha Channel

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 22, 2009

    I was asked this question this week, and wanted to share the answer. Question: When I render particles with an Alpha Channel and import that into Flash, there is a dark halo or weird edges around the particles, which makes compositing impossible. I am rendering out as an FLV with Alpha. What am I doing [...]

    5 comments
  18. Grayscale Gorilla

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 16, 2009

    Hi folks – I just got turned on to a great site – http://greyscalegorilla.com/ – The site belongs to Nick Campbell, a photographer and very talented motion graphics artist. You can see his reel here. Nick also creates tutorials, but what makes him stand out is his helping others to find inspiration through themselves. He [...]

    11 comments
  19. After Effects New York – This time I mean it!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 13, 2009

    OK – the plan is that this month at AENY, I’ll be presenting. Unless someone comes up with a holiday I never heard of, or a meteor hits Manhattan (And I’ve seen enough movies to know it can happen) – I’ll be there. Next meeting: Thursday, June 25, 2009 The Time: 6:45 PM – 9:00 [...]

    2 comments
  20. Present yourself Professionally – Use BCC!

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 09, 2009

    I know this isn’t about animation, but let’s talk business and the web, and presenting one’s self professionally when reaching out to large number of people at once… When you do a mass email, don’t share people’s private info – And that includes their email address! Use BCC instead of CC to hide their contact [...]

    12 comments
  21. Good Direction in CGI & Animation

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 07, 2009

    A lot of the time, animators forget that the key to good animation and VFX isn’s actually good animation (I know that sounds weird, but go with me here). It’s good direction. Don’t get me wrong, good animation is important, but without good direction it falls apart. Take a look at this title sequence from [...]

    6 comments
  22. On being “The Man” and After Effects with H.264

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 05, 2009

    Recently, I was told that, with the launch of a big product like Crowd Control, I went from being just a guy to being “The Man.” Sooooooooo not true. I only own a small island. (you know I’m kidding right – if you live outside NYC, there’s a 99% chance your home is a lot [...]

    7 comments
  23. Good Bye, Old Friend

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 02, 2009

    A while back I did some animation training in NC for the Carolina Hurricanes. No – not the hockey players – the animation team that puts all of the cool stuff up on screen at the games. During that 3 day period, I came up with the Jumbotron Tutorial. Alas, my good friend the JumboTron [...]

    4 comments
  24. A great tutorial on Red Giant TV

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 02, 2009

    No – not one of mine. This one comes from Rob Birnholz of Absolute Motion Graphics. Episode 20: Creating a 3D Picture Montage with Trapcode Particular In this Episode, Rob Birnholz shows you a great technique for quickly creating a 3D picture montage with Trapcode Particular. It takes just minutes to set up, but can [...]

    3 comments
  25. Zero Tolerance

    By Aharon Rabinowitz
    Jun 01, 2009

    It may or may not surprise you, but I get a lot of “thank you” mail – over a hundred a month. And on days where I’m feeling bad about myself or unmotivated, I go through some of those emails to remind me why I do all of this. Some of the people that have [...]

    26 comments