Creating Social Media Ads with After Effects

Now, so we are going to start with lesson 1a. It's called social media ad intro to After Effects. So by the way, the page numbers are really small by the way in the book.

I'm told that was on purpose. So preview in the final video is looking at the video. I showed you before.

It's going to be that social media ad little square thing about the project. Okay, so about the product explains the project. It's basically a square shape social media ad we're going to be importing images video and audio files and combine them together into that animation.

You saw if you look on page 16, there are little pictures drawn pictures. Okay. This is called a storyboard a storyboard is a tool used in animation to plot out to plan out what you're going to animate.

Okay, it's literally little sequential drawings of what's happening. These are drawn by me on my iPad. That is the level of drawing skill.

I have to have. That's basically it. Okay, I can draw boxes and I can draw words.

Okay, that's it. Those are things but it's just a general representation of what's happening. I see arrows indicate movement that sort of thing.

Okay, that's it. And and usually for pictures a little X across the middle means it's a it's a picture. Okay, that's all that's all that's all level of it.

Okay, so that's what we're going to make because normally you wouldn't have a finished video to look at as reference. You would normally have like your plan. You'd have your storyboard all the things that went into like making the animation.

Usually if you're doing that, okay, not every project has storyboards, but they are a helpful way of again planning out what you're going to make. So I included them here for you. Okay, now setting up the workspace.

That's what I did by going to standard. By the way, sorry to reset standard. I just moved around again, didn't I? That's why it says that go to standard workspace.

Make sure you reset it to make sure things are going to be the way I say they are effectively. We work the standard workspace. If you use a different workspace that the panels are in different places and some of them are there and some of them aren't.

If you're in the standard workspace things will be where the instructions of the book tell you they should be. Okay, that's basically that it. Now there is a very big on page 17 grayish or tannish.

I don't know box called projects and compositions. Okay. Right now.

I am in an untitled After Effects project. The top of my program. It says After Effects 2025 untitled project.

After Effects always has a project open. Okay, so you said that makes an untitled project for you. You're going to file open.

It opens a project that you have. You can only have one project open at a time. If you're in a project try to open another one or create a new one.

It will close the one you're in. So that's one of the rules one project at a time. Okay, projects do not have width, height.

They don't have anything. Compositions have width, height, length, that sort of thing. Compositions are where you animate things.

So projects hold compositions. Okay, think of think of a composition as like a suitcase. It has like stuff inside of it, layers inside of it and stuff.

And then think of a project as what moves the compositions around. Okay, a project can have multiple compositions and they're called comps for short. Okay, so I got to make a composition here before I can put anything anywhere.

Okay, hence why there's buttons on my screen that say new composition. Okay, that's all it is. Now.

I'm going to do three things and then it's your turn. I already have a project. So that's cool.

Okay, I am going to make a new composition. I am going to import files and then I'm going to add some of them to the composition. Okay, technically you can import files first then make the comp.

In this case, I'm going to make the comp first and import the files. It doesn't care. Okay, as long as you do both those things before you try to add the file somewhere, you're good.

You have to import a file before you can use it. Okay, or make something. So I'll make a new composition.

Now, here's the first thing where the program isn't going to like you. In every program pretty much I've ever used, if you wanted to make something new, ignore the buttons on the screen, by the way, for now. File, new.

Composition is not a choice on that list. It's not. Never has been, by the way.

Composition has its own menu. Composition, new composition. So, yeah, I'm not defending it.

I'm just saying that's what it does. So even simple things about how do you make a new comp are not obvious because the program is a very specific way that it works. Okay, now to be honest, look, composition, new composition.

It's got a keyboard shortcut, Command-N or Control-N, which is the same keyboard shortcut like new document in every program on the planet. There's a button on the screen. There didn't used to be a button on the screen.

Okay, there's even a button down here at the bottom of the project panel, create a new composition. Okay, they all do the same thing. They all open that dialog box.

So composition, new composition, keyboard shortcut, button on the screen, button at the bottom of the project panel right there, all open this window. Okay, the instructions give you the menu command and the keyboard shortcut, but there's like many ways to do the same thing. Okay, it has to give it a name.

You can call it whatever you want. The instructions say guitar pick square. Okay, for the record, I did not design this project.

I only built the animation for it. So you don't have to design. Do not blame me.

I'm just saying that right now. Okay, I do it. I'm told like an obedient lackey when it comes to using the artwork.

There are presets for size and frame rate. Okay, the instructions tell you to use that one, but there is many others you can use if you wanted to. Okay, now size is width and height.

Okay, so here's another thing that's annoying about video. We have our own meaning for words you may know. Anybody who's used to working with images or graphic design or that sort of thing may be familiar with the word resolution.

It doesn't mean what you think it means here. In video, resolution just means that, width and height. If someone on video says, what's the resolution? They're asking for the physical dimensions, not the pixels per inch.

We have no concept, by the way, of pixels per inch in video at all. So even terms you may know are like different meanings. Okay, now frame rate.

Video is just a series of still images played very, very fast. The frame rate is how fast. American television uses 30.

Film uses 24. European television is 25. And there are much higher frame rates, by the way, than that.

Very often, if you're recording like sports or action footage, you might record at 120 or more. That's mostly for, well, A, clarity, B, to avoid motion blur, and also so that you can do like speed changes. But there are high-speed cameras that shoot at thousands of frames a second.

That's how you get that super cool ultra slow-mo stuff. It's pretty cool, by the way. Okay, but for standard usage, you're probably going to be either 25 if you're European, 30 if you're American, or 24 for film.

Social media doesn't care. They support multiple frame rates, okay? The instructions have you use that preset. This is the American television standard, okay? But there's also a social media square preset.

It's a slightly different number, by the way. It's fine. Okay, so I use that.

Now, the problem is, is I like this, but I don't like the size. So, if I change one, it changes both. Because of that lock asset ratio button right there.

I'm going to turn that off. And I'm just going to type a new size. Okay, I'm going to leave everything else the same, by the way.

It's fine. Now, I'll leave the rest up here at the top the same. I'll do the preset for it.

Ignore resolution isn't making sense yet. Make sense later. Start time code.

What do you want the first number on your timeline to be? Zero. I like zero. Zero is good.

Duration. For those of you used to video editing programs, you've never had this before. Video editing timelines grow infinitely.

As you add more stuff, they get longer. After Effects has a set length. Okay, so the instructions want you to make something that's 15 seconds long.

That number says zero hours, zero minutes, 30 seconds, zero frames. That's what that number is, okay? If I want 15 seconds, 1500 is how I would get it. If I type 15, that is 15 frames.

Okay, frames add up to make minutes. Minutes make hours. Sorry, sorry.

Frames add up to make seconds. Seconds make minutes. Minutes make hours.

If I type 15, it's just 15 frames. That is a much shorter length of time than 15 seconds. Okay, this is going to happen at least once in this class.

Someone's going to type, when it says seven seconds,  they're going to type seven frames or something. It happens. So that's 15 seconds.

I can change the length of time of a comp later, but it's more trouble. Okay, so be careful with the time. So 1500 is 15 seconds.

Okay, I don't care about the background color. If you care, click on it, pick a color. The instructions need black for that like kind of fadey thing to work,  but I mean, if you want a different color, it's fine.

Woohoo, like that. Okay, so I like what I did. And for the record, there actually is a preset that would have made it that size square.

Okay, there is, I can't lie. However, there's only a handful of presets in the program,  and there's an infinite number of possible sizes you could want something to be. Maybe you need something to run across three linked television screens.

That would be 1920 times three, whatever that number is. You could make the comp that size. Technically, you can make it like 30,000.

It wouldn't care. It's pretty big. So something's got to make custom sizes,  and you don't want to have to type these numbers in every time.

It's annoying. So there's a little button right there that would save this as a preset. I'll call it InstaSquare.

Okay, like that. Now, by the way, like I said, there was a preset for that already,  but then you wouldn't have learned how to make your own, save your own preset. One note, the resetting preferences I did will wipe that out.

Custom presets are deleted when you reset preferences. Sorry, I don't know why, they just are. I say okay, and I get that.

That is a composition. This, so by the way, all these extra nones I'm going to close. Whoever saved the default workspace for this had many extra timelines open.

So that's the comp. That's visually the comp. This is the comp's timeline.

Okay, so this and this are the same. That is what we actually made, the composition. So for example, if I take my shape tool and draw here, I get a new shape layer.

I take my type tool and type here, click type, I get a new text layer. This is where everything gets assembled in a comp. By the way, I don't want those things.

I'm just going to delete them.