Day 3: Motion and Keyframes

Objectives

Practice Files: Click here

General Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the principles of motion and keyframes
  • Understand how to apply and adjust effects

Specific Learning Objectives:

  • Be able to navigate the Effect Control panel
  • Create motion and adjust position, scale, rotation and opacity on different clips.

 

Outline

Introduction / Hook:

  • Any questions from last class?
  • Review the material from the last class.
  • How you hook the class in is up to you. We suggest showing the class a finished video, either one you’ve made before or the finished video example from the class files.

Creating Simple Motion Using Keyframes:

  • Today is going to be completely devoted to understanding how to apply animations and work with Keyframes and the Effects Control Panel
  • Define Keyframes
    • “A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing or shot that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. These are called frames because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film or on a digital video editing timeline.”  -Wikipedia
  • Practice creating simple motion with the “Pong Activity” found in the Project Files for today:
    • Demonstrate how to keyframe under “Motion” in Effect Controls. This activity should take 2-5 minutes.
    • Clicking on the Stopwatch icon will activate keyframes for that specific effect/property. Keyframes are on when the stopwatch is blue, and existing keyframes can be deleted by turning off the stopwatch.
    • Pressing the white dot to the right of the effect creates a new keyframe wherever the playhead is at, as well as changing the effect while the playhead is in a new position (this is the preferred method).
    • Pong Gameplay Example (in case the class doesn’t know what Pong is) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiShX2pTz9A 

Masks:

  • Explain the basic concepts of masks
    • Masks in Premiere are significantly simpler than in any other software. When an effect (such as Blur) is applied via mask, only the masked portion is affected by the effect. The mask can also be keyframed to move, just like any other object.
  • Show the class the Epic Fail Example Video and explain the importance of being able to track subjects. Have them create a new project and add the Epic Fail video into the timeline.
  • We can keyframe certain effects to follow subjects in two ways:
    • Manually, where you go frame by frame and move the mask every frame
  • Automatically, where Premiere finds the subject and keyframes the motion of the mask for you.
  • Have the class go to the Effects window and look up Gaussian Blur. This would normally apply a blur to the entire screen (which you can see if you boost the actual blur in the Effect Control window.), but if you apply a mask to your screen it will stay within that mask.
    • Have them apply a circular mask, and put it over Lee’s face.
    • Just click the play button and let Premiere do it’s magic!
  • If it doesn’t work, try to go where it goes off track, realign it, do the same to the next couple of frames, and then re-play the tracking button!
    • NOTE: Premiere is making the keyframes for you. If you go into the Effect Control Panel, you’ll see all of the keyframes that you can edit.

Animating Multiple Effects:

  • For the rest of the class, guide the students through the Alien Invasion Keyframe Project to give them experience keyframing with multiple effects and multiple components at the same time. Before you start on the project, feel free to show them the “Alien Invasion Example Final” video for an idea of what they’re going to be doing for the rest of class.
  • Have the class create and name a new project. Using “File > Import”, go into the Alien Invasion Assets and have the class import the “Alien Invasion Keyframe Project.psd” into their project assets.
    • When the class imports the Photoshop file, a dialogue box should appear to specify how you want Premiere to import the file. For our class, and for most classes, make sure that the class chooses to import as “Individual Layers, instead of as a single layer (see below). This will allow you to work with each layer as an individual object.
  • Give the students a couple of minutes to place the different objects into the timeline. Using the Effect Controls panel, change the position and scale to create a scene where the Aliens abduct the cow (or the barn if they’re feeling funny). To do this, show the class how to keyframe with the following skills: Position, Scale, Rotation, and Opacity.
    • Position: Since we’ve already worked with this in the Pong exercise, this shouldn’t be too difficult. Just have the class choose when and where they want the object to end up, and then let the computer work from there.
      • Use this to keyframe the spaceship moving across the sky to line up on top of the cow.
    • Scale: Scale focuses on how big or how small an object is. By keyframing the scale, we can make an object appear to get closer or farther from the audience.
      • Use this to keyframe the spaceship appearing from outer space by starting the scale at 0 and following that up with a new keyframe at 100+% scale. By lining this second keyframe up with the position keyframes, you can make it seem like the spaceship is coming out of space and directly on top of the cow.
    • Rotation: Rotation is pretty self explanatory; it deals with the relative angle of the object. When keyframed, this can create a great spinning effect on the objects being manipulated. Simply create two keyframes, one for a starting point and the other to tell Premiere how many rotations to make in between.
      • Use this effect to make the cow spin up into the spaceship after being abducted.
    • Opacity: Opacity deals with the visibility of the object. An object at 0% opacity will appear invisible and at 50% will appear transparent. Anything in lower layers will begin to appear as the opacity is lowered.
      • Keyframe this effect for the tractor beam that will appear beneath the cow to suck it up. If you start at 0% and then fade up from there, the object will seem like it’s appearing out of nowhere.
  • Feel free to go through the following steps to complete the video, but the rest of the class should be time for the students to practice keyframing with multiple effects. Remind them to focus on animating one action at a time (i.e. just moving the cow up into the ship, just scaling the cow to appear like it’s disappearing, or just adding the rotation effect to the cow.)
    • Using Position and Scale, place the Barn and the Cow onto the Background.
    • Keyframe the “Alien Invasion” text to appear (up to the editor’s discretion)
    • Keyframe the position and scale of the spaceship to make it appear to be coming from outer space.
    • Keyframe the opacity of the tractor beam so that it appears just over the cow.
    • Keyframe the position and scale of the cow to make it look like it’s being sucked up into the spaceship.
    • Keyframe the opacity and/or use a mask on the tractor beam to disappear after the cow has been abducted.
    • Keyframe the position and scale of the spaceship to make it fly off into space again.

OPTIONAL: Masks

  • If time permits, and if the class is engaged enough to understand masks, you can teach the class how to apply a mask to the opacity effect.
  • By clicking on the Circle, Square, or Pen icons just under Opacity in the Effects Control Panel, you can apply a mask (either in a circle, square or custom shape) onto your object. The simplest explanation for this is to explain the mask as a window that the object you’re editing can be seen through.
  • Focus on just animating the Mask Path (avoid covering the Mask Feather, Opacity, or Expansion effects). You can do this by placing a keyframe, moving ahead into the timeline, and then manually moving the mask in the Project window. If you watch through after, what should happen is that the mask will move to whatever position you placed it, affecting the object being masked.
    • Use this to make the tractor beam appear like it’s descending or ascending from the spaceship. You can see an example of this effect in the example video; once the cow has been sucked into the ship, the tractor beam appears to go back up into the spaceship as well. This is done by keyframing the mask to move upwards, making the tractor beam beneath appear like it’s going up into the ship.

Conclusion:

  • Review Questions
  • Today we learned:
    • How to navigate the Effect Control panel
    • How to keyframe different effects.
    • How to manipulate an object’s position, scale, rotation, and opacity
    • Opt: Learned the basics of animating masks
  • Next time we’ll learn about: Color
  • Be sure to remind the class about Badges!