Adobe After Effects, the tool of choice for many professionals in animation and video post-production, allows users to design and deliver professional motion graphics and visual effects for film, TV, video, and web.
Learn this powerful motion graphics application in Noble Desktop’s hands-on classes. Whether you take the one-day intro workshop, or more comprehensive beginner and advanced courses, you’ll work on several real-world animation projects, including GIFs, ads, title sequences, and logos.
Hands-on After Effects Training
In our After Effects courses—beginner to advanced and a one-day workshop—you’ll cover all the essentials needed to bring your videos to life. Learn by completing real-world projects in our step-by-step training workbooks.
“After Effects In a Day is a great beginner class to learn simple animation basics. Great variety of exercises in the training book. Kalika is a fun and entertaining instructor and she shared some of her own work which is amazing and inspiring!”
Victoria Greiss
Creative Director
Victoria learned After Effects essentials in our In a Day course
“After Effects in a Day was awesome. We started by watching, then doing. I like that the approach was exercise-based, as opposed to going through every single tool and interface (like some other trainings I’ve been to). It’s my preferred way to learn, and I came away learning more than I anticipated!”
Lisa Keller
Graphic Designer + Creative Services Manager, Penguin Random House
Enjoyed Noble’s teaching method in the After Effects in a Day course
“After taking the After Effects class at Noble Desktop, I was able to create an animation immediately following completion of the course material - now I have the tools to continue using After Effects in my personal projects and beyond.”
Blake Drummond
Founder, Diagonal Media
Attended the comprehensive After Effects CC Level 1 course
“Kalika was an excellent instructor. Her enthusiasm and passion for After Effects was contagious. She was patient, smart, and funny. She brought a much needed lightness and humor to a difficult subject. When I began to feel overwhelmed, Kalika was hands-on with helping me. She was genuinely interested in teaching us what we wanted to know. We followed the instruction booklet but it was not forced upon us—we went at our own pace and was able to spend the last class practicing our own project ideas. I left my three-day Noble Desktop experience feeling inspired and excited to continue my After Effects learning journey. I intend on using my new knowledge to make personal art as well as enhance my day-job work as a graphic designer in higher education. I cannot speak highly enough of Kalika. She was truly a pleasure.”
Lisa Festa
Graphic Designer, Princeton University
Attended the After Effects Level 1 course
“I had been trying to learn After Effects on my own for a while, but it wasn’t until I decided to take the course through Noble Desktop that things really started to make sense for me. Now I feel that I have a solid foundation and am more excited than before about learning After Effects.”
Eric Vasquez
Art Director / Graphic Designer / Illustrator
Learned to animate and create motion graphics in Adobe After Effects Level 1
“This is a great intensive course to get you started with After Effects. I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about learning this. I would definitely take more classes at Noble Desktop.”
Rose Mattrey
Graphic Designer, AAA Western & Central NY
Rose learned animation and video post-production in the After Effects Level 1 class.
“After Effects Level 2 is a near perfect course. The marketing for it is on point; you touch on everything from animation to green screen removal to rotoscoping. Can’t think of another class that covers this much in such a short amount of time. Bravo Noble Desktop!”
Benjamin Nazario
Producer/Editor
“Definitely recommend Noble Desktop over taking a semester-long Continuing Ed. class at an expensive art school. This class covers techniques in a practical manner and you can get started on your own after 3 days of intensive learning. The teacher is fantastic, friendly, and engaging.”
Sara Kliti
Designer
“Great class and workflow! I feel more confident in my ability with AfterEffects and the instructor was interactive and really wants you to learn the program!”
Liberty Mayo
“This class is perfect if you're looking for an easy, but in depth introduction to After Effects.”
Danny Menendez
Video Producer, BuzzFeed
“Great source for creativeness”
Alice Ugarte
Senior Graphic Designer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey
“So experienced!! Every time I had a roadblock, Kalika immediately knew what step I missed or what I did wrong. A true wealth of knowledge. I learned way more than I thought I would in 3 days.
I would highly recommend to other designers and my co workers!”
Christina
Senior Product Designer, Stash Invest
“If you're thinking that there's nothing you could possibly learn from this class, think again. Kalika does such a wonderful job of teaching, cheering you on and engaging the class that I looked forward to the next class before the current one had already ended.”
Amanda
Editor
“I came in with some ideas of what I could do with After-Effects but left the class totally blown away by all the things I can do now.”
Mackenzie Robinson
Graphic Designer
“The class was very informative and helped me take After Effects to the next level.”
Michael Piersanti
“This is a class devoted to real projects, run by a teacher who generously shares her knowledge, experience and passion for animation.”
Traian Stanescu
“This class allows you to create the exact type of clips you see when scrolling through Instagram or diving through YouTube. The instructor, Kalika, has endless knowledge of the industry and the program. You’ll walk away from the last class with a bunch of material worthy of posting.”
Kathleen
“"Super helpful! For an intro class I learned everything I needed to fool around and explore the program for myself without being frustrated looking up "how to's on Google."”
michael cracco
graphic designer
“After Effects In A Day is a fantastic introduction to After Effects and some of the basic animation possibilities. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to get their feet wet with After Effects. ”
Alanna Kellogg
Graphic Designer, EYP Architecture & Engineering
“Noble Desktop has always been my go to place. Their attention to detail, cooperation in working with scheduling and providing top notch instructors makes it a pleasure to work with them. I'll be back!”
Lori Zalbowitz Roux
Owner/Producer, Whole Story Productions
“A wonderful introduction! I feel more comfortable playing around with After Effects on my own. ”
Catherine Gonzalez
Editorial Assistant, Colorlines
“As a broad spectrum type of class, it hit on so many key points and features of After Effects. I feel much more capable and confident now. GREAT class!”
Kelly Vail
Graphic Designer, Alpha1 Marketing
“Great school!! Offers a lot of courses, in different fields like Design, Coding and Business. Amazing teachers, currently I'm taking the After Effects class and it's so exciting, it's a bit complex but a really cool program. My teacher Kalika is really nice and has a lot of experience and knowledge. She is great!! I highly recommend the school.”
Meruyert
“In Kalika's After Effects class you'll learn a lot more than this Adobe app. With sensitivity and attention to detail, Kalika charmingly drops her own hard learned lessons of working as a professional graphic animator into every lesson at every opportunity. You can see the effort Kalika puts in to the lessons and during the class so students gain the most out of this course.”
Dov Alpert
“Amazing class, instructed by a very devoted teacher to her craft”
Traian Stanescu
“After Effects in a Day was a great primer on a very powerful piece of software. I loved the instructor, and am excited to explore more about what AE can do!”
Nicholas Moy
Production Coordinator, Nikon
“Fabulous class, taught with personality and real-world situations as examples. Would highly recommend for the graphic designer wanting to put motion into their work. ”
Sonia
Designer, TripleLift
“After Effects in a day pretty much gets you up to speed fast. It is like a bullion cube of condensed knowledge that expands into a tasty, filling broth.”
Jeff Faerber
Advertising Design, Spotco
“The instructor gave extremely clear instructions and was one of the best teachers I've come across.”
Arianne Hirsch
Graphic Designer/ Student
“Kalika was so engaging. You can tell that she's not only extremely knowledgable, but extremely passionate about what she does. I was completely immersed into a program I had never launched before, and am no longer intimidated to pursue Ae. ”
Kaylan Whitaker
Graphic Designer, Givaudan
“Not only did I learn so much more than I've ever imagined, but I had fun learning it too!”
Chase Middleton
“Very helpful for starting out in After Effects.”
Gwyneth Olsom
Graphic Designer, Mathematica
“Learned a lot in a short amount of time!”
Djamika Smith
Graphic Designer, 92Y
“"If you're looking to get started with After Effects, by gawd this is the place to do it!" ”
Matt
Graphic Designer, 92Y
“A great foundation for someone who can't tell up from down in After Effects!”
In our After Effects classes you’ll learn through projects. First by watching a short demo, then by actually practicing on animations and motion graphics including GIFs, ads, title sequences, and logos. Our instructor and course developer has created numerous projects specifically for these classes that draw on her many years of experience to teach you practical, professional skills.
Real-world motion graphics and animation training projects
Custom Workbook Included
All of our After Effects classes come with a custom step-by-step training manual sold to universities and schools around the world. Recreate the class projects and refresh the After Effects materials anytime after the class.
After Effects course manual by Noble Desktop
Industry Expert Instructor
Our After Effects courses are taught by Kalika Kharkar Sharma, a leading motion graphics professional who has produced animations for a wide range of clientele including CNBC, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network. Kalika teaches motion graphics and traditional and digital character animation techniques at NYU and Noble Desktop, and freelances as an animator, editor and motion graphics artist.
Motion graphics professional teaching students techniques
Use After Effects, the industry-standard program for motion graphics and animations, to create sophisticated animations and graphics, beyond the scope of a basic editing program.
Create title sequences for films.
Create sophisticated animated GIFs for emails.
Create Motion Graphics or Animations based on any or all of the following: layered Illustrator or Photoshop files, photos, JPG and PNG files, video clips, and/or audio.
For social media marketing–motion graphics in a Facebook feed, an animated Snapchat.
Motion graphics is the combination of graphic design and movement. It takes cues from character animation, typography, layout, video editing, illustration and sound design. After Effects is the industry-standard software for motion graphics.
Animation means to “give life to.” Ordinary still images such as photos, text and illustrations, can be “brought to life” through animation. You can use Premiere for basic animation or After Effects for more complex animations.
Color Correction or Color Grading is the art of adjusting the colors of elements in your video projects, to create a particular feeling or mood, using settings (called Filters or Effects) in a video or graphics editing program.
These adjustments can also be used to “fix” things that were not filmed to one's liking. Exposure problems, white or color balance issues, removing or adjusting the amount of noise or grain in an image, changing the contrast, are all things that fall under the umbrella of Color Correction or Color Grading.
If graphics are to be web-only, After Effects is fine for color correction. However for broadcast TV work, Premiere's Lumetri or DaVinci Resolve are more accurate (because TV supports fewer colors than web).
Can be separated into 4 basic categories: Ambient sounds or Ambience (background noise), Music, Voiceover or Dialogue, and Sound Effects.
The best practice when working with audio is to do a rough edit and adjustment of sound excerpts and audio volume in a video editing program such as Premiere, and then export OMF files for a professional sound designer.
For web-only graphics, it’s acceptable to edit and adjust audio in a graphics program like After Effects.
