Compositing a Cell Phone in After Effects

1h 34mIntermediate2016-06-22

Authors

Andy Needham

Motion Designer, Editor, Compositor

Course details

The mobile app market is saturated. If you can show clients or investors how the app works—before any time or money has been invested into a lengthy development cycle—it can help speed up approval and funding.

Here, Andy Needham shows how to take the app mockup created in the companion course, After Effects: Creating a Mobile App Interface, and composite it into live-action footage of a smartphone. The final product is an animated promo video that helps visualize how the app will be used on a real device. Andy also covers storyboarding, tracking, keying, color correction, and a few audio tips. By the end of the course, you'll have more experience with the screen replacement workflow in After Effects and have a web-ready deliverable ready to share with the world.

Learning objectives
Planning with a storyboard
Filming the phone
Importing the live-action footage in After Effects
Retiming the animation
Tracking the shot in mocha AE
Keying the screen with Keylight
Adding an animated logo
Rendering the shot
Color correcting the composite

Skills covered

Motion GraphicsAfter EffectsRenderingMotion Graphics and VFXProjectVisualization and Real-TimeAdobeAECProduct and ManufacturingAnimation and Illustration

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome
02 - What you should know
03 - How to use the exercise files

1. Plan and Build a Rough Edit

04 - What we'll create
05 - Plan with a storyboard
06 - Film the phone
07 - Edit the sequence in Adobe Premiere
08 - Import and organize in After Effects

2. Track and Composite the Phone

09 - Retime the app animation
10 - Rotoscope the finger in Mocha
11 - Track the screen
12 - Export and apply tracking data
13 - Key the screen
14 - Add finishing touches

3. Complete the Promo Video

15 - Render the phone shot
16 - Rework the opening shots
17 - Color correct the footage
18 - Add graphics and audio
19 - Export for web

Conclusion

20 - Next steps