After Effects is one of the most powerful post production tools on the market. This incredible piece of software from Adobe is a must for any budding film makers looking for a tool with which to bring their films to life or create that attention grabbing opening title sequence. Unlike Photoshop or Premier though, After Effects is not the kind of software that you can easily just load up and experiment with to obtain a basic knowledge of how it all works. The possibilities of this piece of software are endless but even the basics take a little bit of time to get to grips with, but rest assured once you to the sky is the limit.

The best way to get familiar with After Effects and start producing some of those amazing effects that you have seen in the movies is to follow some of the many available tutorials that can be found online. One of the best resources availble can be found at www.videocopilot.net . This site is home to nearly 100 fantastic video tutorials by Andrew Kramer that cover everything from the basics right through to some really high end effects and projects. The tutorials are clear, precise and easy to follow, ensuring that followers will be left both satisfied and excited by the results.

A few other great places to check out for more After Effects tutorials are creativecow.net and RedGiant TV

It wasn’t that long ago that video online was a new thing and now it seems to be everywhere from proffessional content all the way through to the user gernerated stuff on YouTube. The reasons for the rise in popularity of video online are numerous  but one that stands out stong and clear is ‘engaging content’. Video keeps readers interested and interested viewers tend to stick around for longer. Now though the time has come to add a little more interactivity to your videos allowing your viewers to interact directly with the video content that you offer them.

and how do you do this?

Cue Points!

The ability to add cue points to video has been around for quite some time time but the process has always been fairly complicated and restricted to developers that are familiar with action script. The fundamental concept centres around the placement of ‘cue points within a .flv file that then bring about certain actions via an action script command. For example you can have overlay adverts appear at certain points during a video when certain products are mentioned or create hot spots on the video itself. As I mentioned though, up until now to create these kind of interactive videos you would need to have a fairly good knowledge of Action script and Flash but now thanks to those clever boys over at flash loaded there is a component that makes the whole process so much easier.

hotflashvideo is a video component for Flash that takes away all of the complicated Action script side of creating interactive videos. Once installed in Flash you can select an .flv file and set about easily adding hot spots to your video via the very clever overlay tool. The component does cost $70 but if you are producing a product for a client or intend to create a few interactive videos in the future it is great value for money and a great time saving tool.

One of the finest resources for any would be web developer is Flashden and the other affiliated sites offered up through the Envato network. With a whole host of .FLA (source files) for use in your web projects from Video players right through to full flash website templates all offered at affordable prices this site has always been a firm favourite with myself and many other developers.

The Envato network has grown over the years and now offers up a series of other stock resources covering all of the media areas that any developer or designer could ever have a need for. The offerings include:

• videohive – stock video footage and AE project files
• audiojungle – music and audio samples
• themeforest – website templates
• graphic river – page layouts and graphic elements

I will be featuring many of the files and projects that catch my eye from these sites in future posts.

In a recent communication from Flashden it would appear that Adobe have come down hard on the resource site for the use of the word ‘flash’ in the title of the site. Ridiculous as it may sound Adobe have asked envato to change the name to ensure users will not be confused in any way into believing there is a direct link between envato and Adobe. These corporate brand identity issues allways leave me at a loss for words so I will leave it up to you to have your own take on the whole affair. The guys at Envato have reacted very well to the whole situation and rather than argue it out have just changed the name to ‘Activeden’.

so… new name… same great product!

Brightcove is a rich featured video platform for online video publishers. The platform serves video for some of the largest providers of video on the internet such as Sky, Sony, HBO, National Geographic and Buena Vista International.