After Effects Tutorial: Edmonson Cartoon Effect

Requires After Effects CS4+. Use the Cartoon effect to turn a sequence of still photographs into animated line art. You can composite the result over a wide range of textured backgrounds.

Note:
Almost a year to the date I originally wrote this tutorial, I can finally make it public because the film has been released! You can watch it here: Jury Selection: Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company.

This is the trailer, which is almost entirely done with the effect I’m about to explain:

I’m currently working on a new Constitution Project film about Edmonson V. Leesville Concrete Company. In the past, we’ve used methods like digital puppetry to avoid filming reenactments. Edmonson is a much more recent court case than the others we’ve covered (1991), but the US Supreme Court only permits audio recordings of oral arguments, so there’s still no footage of the proceedings.

We were actually able to interview several of the people involved, however, resulting in tons of sharp, clear green screen footage (It’s also our first CP film in HD), as well as hundreds if not thousands of still images. So what to do with them?

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The Constitution Project: The Website

We’ve spent the last several weeks building a showcase site for all of our Constitution Project films, and it’s finally done!

Give it a gander:

http://www.theconstitutionproject.com/

There’s a lot of information here: you can watch all of our films (via links to Sunnylands Classroom), access related research material, and find out when and where they’ll be screening (Yick Wo will be in three festivals in the next few weeks!). It should be a great resource for teachers and students, but my bigger hope is that people who are interested in the subject matter but have no idea the movies exist will stumble across them. Yes, they’re aimed at high schoolers, but I think the potential audience is much wider. They’re genuinely fun to watch.

I didn’t design the site from the ground up, but I did a LOT of customizing and actually ended up writing quite a bit of PHP. I started with the lovely Elegance WordPress theme, and tweaked it quite a lot. I even wrote a couple widgets from scratch! WordPress is a wonderful thing, and I’m really looking forward to using it as a CMS for work.

There are two things I’d really like to get working eventually and wish I knew how:

• Include term descriptions when listing a film’s custom taxonomy terms in the sidebar
• Associate a set of links with a single film’s page (the film portfolio is a custom post type), and have them show up in the sidebar automatically.

Both seem quite obvious, and yet have me stumped. I’m hoping later versions of WordPress will make them easier.

Taking the “OW!” out of Powerpoint

I do my best to never, ever have to touch Powerpoint. I managed to go more than three years at my job before I finally had to relent and install it for a particular project. I have to admit, however, that I’m vaguely fascinated by how it manages to be exactly the wrong tool for 90%+ of what it’s used for. On one hand, it forces you to oversimplify complex ideas, without giving you what you need to actually make them easier to understand. On the other, it puts very dangerous powers of Bad Animation in the hands of people who shouldn’t even be going near the text color selector.

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Go Home Wrong!

I have a little side project I’ve been working on recently, and I think there’s finally enough content there to make it worth sharing.

It’s a photoblog called “Go Home Wrong” and the idea is to do just that: take a different route home from work — even just a block out of your way — and see what’s there.

The whole thing came about when I bought a teenyteenytiny folding bicycle and discovered how much interesting stuff there is along the Hudson Greenway — it certainly beats spending an hour hurtling through underground tunnels on my way to my windowless office. I’ve stumbled across everything from a truck full of folded-up escalators to a fish-delivery service called “Meat Without Feet”, and those photos really needed a home. In addition, several lovely people have added things they’ve come across on their own commutes, such as an acorn-shaped grave marker and a sign for Astronaut High School. The eventual plan is to go home even wrong-er, and take weird circuitous routes between my job and my apartment. And to get other people to do the same. As they say, “variety is the spice of oh-my-god-I-don’t-want-to-cut-through-the-manhattan-mall-again.”

I would love to have more contributors, so if you find something fun on your way to work, send it in! There’s a submission form on the site.

Peeling Gold Leaf Effect

So I’ve been experimenting with BCC Reptilian. It’s normally used to make lizard skin-style textures, but I discovered some other interesting things to do with it, and this was the most realistic effect I managed.

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“Snowbot” — New Animated Short

One of the Android blogs I follow had a video contest, so I put this little film together in an evening. It’s all After Effects + Illustrator, and done on my teeny tiny S10 netbook. Animating an HD film on a 10″ screen is probably insane, but at least it saved me a trip to the office!

Alas, much of the evening was spent dealing with render errors (lesson: overflow volume settings are REALLY IMPORTANT on a netbook), so I only managed to upload the rough version before the contest’s midnight deadline. Oh well, maybe an extra couple hours is ok?

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Abstract Cube Wallpaper

Finally, another big batch o’ wallpaper for your enjoyment!

They’re all 1920×1080.

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Amusing Phrases from Spam Commenters

Akismet does a wonderful job of blocking all the spam comments my site receives. (I get a ton!) And part of the fun is reading the posts it has blocked, particularly the ones with dummy text designed to hide a random link. Here are some recent highlights:

• The Generic Blog Comment: “I was studying something else about this on another blog. Interesting. Your perspective on it is diametrically opposed to what I read in the first place. I am still contemplating over the various points of view, but I’m tipped to a great extent toward yours. And regardless, that’s what is so great about modern democracy and the marketplace of ideas on-line.”
• Travel-related comments on a Photoshop tutorial: “Fellow Tourists April should be good for a Long Island Romantic Getaways .Options are many- I grew up near that area, so I would definitely like the Places to visit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Until my financial situation improves, you can’t beat the Places to Visit in Florida Any thoughts?”
• Full, detailed rules of Backgammon, too long to post here.
• The purely baffling: “After the sewing machine needle has continued in its’ upward motion to a point at which it is above the fabric, the feed-dogs rise”
• Ditto: “Bgure hurrying through the rain. Down the steps and along the corridor, to take the buy cialis online day—of the rain! I punched up the”
• In response to a post about my inflatable cube-frog: “Hey Wassup? My name is Jett I’ve been browsing these forums for a long time now, and I finally found something worth writing here:
  I bought my wife a motorscooter, repaired our kitchen,but the thing that excited her the most was without a doubt my intention to Buy Loose Diamonds for our silver wedding anniversary. These Loose diamonds are Emerald diamonds,and are engaging. The Diamond has reached to our home via messanger.”
• Same post: Advantageously, the post is actually the sweetest topic on this registry related issue. I fit in with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your future updates.
• And that age-old question: “So true, with so much to stay on top of though how do you balnce it all?”

How do I balnce it all? Well, spam filters help.

What have I been up to lately?

Things are busy here at The Documentary Group.

I’ve been working on several different projects over the past few months. The biggest one is Lafayette: The Lost Hero, an hour-long documentary which will air in April on PBS. Here’s the trailer:

I’ve also done a lot of animation for three Constitution Project films: two about Supreme Court cases, Ledbetter v. Goodyear and Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company, as well as one about the Bill of Rights which will be turned into an interactive game. Once these have made it through the final online edit, I’ll post some of the fun things I’ve made for them as well as links to where you can watch online.

Next month, I finish up Ledbetter and start on a project about jazz and American history. Meanwhile, DocGroup is embarking on their biggest-scale production since I began working here (big enough we’ve run out of office space!), and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a four-part PBS series about the history of TV called America in Primetime, and I’m really looking forward to working on it.

Crochet an Android Robot

I love the Android logo guy. He’s adorable. So I thought I’d make a stuffed one!

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