I've been asked to present a 3-day workshop on visual effects, need help please ..

[mr_projects]

Hi,

I've been asked to present a 3-day workshop on visual effects filmmaking for 10 students. I'll be mainly be using AE.

Here is what I'm thinking of initially:

Day 1 (3 hours):
- For the first day, it will be mainly an intro, presenting slides, fundamentals, examples ..etc

Day 2 (3 hours):
- On the second day we will have an intro to AE and will do small tutorials together to learn the basics.

Day 3 (3 hours):
- On the last day we will create a project, something simple like shooting one of the students and adding background and effects, they will see me creating a whole project from scratch. At the end we will have a short 30min Q&A.

The outline above is by no means fixed, but just an idea of what I have on mind. I haven't taught before and this will be my first experience. So I'm totally a noob.

I would be grateful hearing your comments and thoughts in order to improve on this. Also any good books or sites where I could get some starting point on the material to present ?

Much appreciated.

[aaronber]

Since you have so little time maybe you can discuss the fundamentals inside after effects instead of slides. For example when you talk about greenscreen you can show your comp in AE and walk through the layers of what is going on in there. The more time you spend inside AE on the first day the more familiar the interface will be to the students. Maybe you could break up the first day a bit to include a little AE time. What I see as a potential stumbling block is you are going to cover a bunch of theory on day one and then on day two drop back to talking about the interface. If you could integrate your demos, theory and assignments together you would have reinforcement of it all. Remember that everything in AE has been designed with the artist and the theory in mind so using it to present the information can be natural. It may slow down the pace of your day a bit, so a short lecture about principles and examples followed by a demo then a hands on simple test might help.

A demo that I did in one of my compositing classes was a Sin City shot where everything was black and white except for the blood on the actors face. We shot it against green screen with a few yellow markers, and put some blue blood on the actors face. We could key out the green and isolate the blue to make it red while turning the skin grey. It turned into a great lecture/demo because it referenced something everyone saw already and how color difference is important to isolating a single color to create a mask. We had a plan to do glasses that we would turn white but the person who was supposed to bring the prop flaked out.

Sounds like fun, good luck!

[mr_projects]

Thanks aaronber your comment really helped !

What I'm thinking now is to revise the workshop as follows:

Day 1: Short lecture 30min on fundamentals, then Visual effects/compositing basics using AE to demonstrate, then conclude with AE basics

Day 2: Short tutorials on AE for the first part, then at the end of the day I will reveal the final outcome of the project to create on Day 3, as a teaser.

Day 3: Project day, will create the project from scratch while students watch. Then get the students recreate it while supervising them.

What do you think ?

[aaronber]

On Day 1 is the AE basics interactive with the class? that sounds pretty great. Remind everyone that they can download the 30-day trial of After Effects so they can mess around with it at home after the class (Homework!).

The only thing I see that could be a problem is the demo on day 3 where you go through the project. I have found that when you do this as a demo you either have to go so fast (to allow for more class/lab time for students) that some of the slower students have a hard time understanding the process, or you have to go so slow that people can follow along that more advanced students get bored. It is a challenge to meet the needs of a diverse set of students. I like to do quick demos where I am working out the thought process behind each decision and messing with the options with the class, emphasizing that I already know where the dials need to be and that is why I am going so fast and that students will need to experiment for themselves. I divide the process into specific sections and emphasize them over and over again, for example "this is the keying stage" or "this is the tracking stage" because I think what we are really trying to communicate is a roadmap to the process and the thoughts behind each section rather than specific values for sliders. Make the workflow very clear for your students on day 3 and try to keep them from trying to remember the specific values you chose for each step.

I also think it may be beneficial to plan a few advanced topics on the chance that you get some students who are really picking things up quick. It is always a shame when the advanced students get bored and don't get any attention or help. What is great about these students is that often you can make suggestions to them or do very quick advanced demos and they can pick it up fast and run with it so they continue to stay challenged, they learn more, and you don't confuse students that aren't at that level. I have never had luck getting the advanced students to help others because they aren't there to teach and most don't really want to, so you have to find stuff for them to do. It can be difficult to plan such scalable exercises but it can be really rewarding because working with the advanced students is a more collaborative process.

What is the project you are planning? Are you supplying all the elements outside of class or are you actually going to shoot something?

[mr_projects]

On Day 1 is the AE basics interactive with the class? Yes that's the plan

Regarding the project, I'm planning to create a simple scene where one of the students is shooting a basketball hoop (side shot) and have a crowd on the background, as well as reflections on ground / camera flashes effect .etc

I would shoot just the students with the green screen, then add the other elements which I should get ready before hand.

Also, great point on the advanced topics, I will have to think of this and keep that on mind.

Thanks