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.

Although Youtube is the first social video site that comes to mind and quite obviously the one with the most users and traffic it does not need to be the end of the line when it comes to uploading a video that you are looking to get some air time. In fact many believe that you have a far greater chance working on some of the smaller networks to get good viewing figures due to the reduced amount of competition. So what else is out there? A simple google search will bring up a list of the top 20 social video sites that are around and this would be a great place to start.check out http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/video-websites for a good rundown of the sites that are available.

The two that you should really be concentrating on other than YouTube are Metacafe and Dailymotion. Both of these sites have a very large user base and offer good possibilities for potential marketeers. The principle on these sites is the same as on YouTube, to get your video watched you need to make it into the best of the day lists for either views, favourites or comments so interaction with other members is a must to ensure your videos receive the kick start that they need. There are a number of other services out there also that can help you get your video moving up the charts in those crucial early days such as Vidplay that offers pay per click services across the Metacafe network.

So don’t despair if your video doesn’t make it on YouTube, just change channel and have another go!

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.