By Aharon Rabinowitz
Published on Friday, December 5th, 2008
Recently, I received this email:
I wanted to know if you can do a tutorial on how to recreate (as closely as possible) the effects used in the commercial and trailer for the TV show 24? You can view the trailer at: http://www.fox.com/24/ - Click “play trailer.”
The trailer he’s referring to is, unfortunately, gone. There are others there, but they don’t have quite the same effect. In the trailer, Jack Bauer is sitting in a courtroom. At one point in the closeup, the video freezes, and his face breaks up into hundreds of 24s. The 3D camera rotates about 90 degrees, and some text is revealed.
So I took a look at it, and started to play around. As I did, I tried to think about how this effect might be useful to the few of us that don’t work on the show 24. And so the end result is this:
Click the image to watch the video. Footage provided by Artbeats Software, Inc.
… A transition in which one video breaks into binary code, and reforms into another image. Maybe I’ve watched too many election debates (“I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear…”) because it’s not quite the effect that I was asked about, but most of what we cover will prepare you for doing something like that, and, I’d like to think, a lot more.
This is probably the longest tutorial I’ve ever done (almost 25 minutes for part 1) because we’re using Trapcode Form, which is both a powerful and complex tool. I wanted to make sure you understood everything I was doing, so that you could take that information and apply it to your own work (and not just do the same exact thing I do).
And just for watching, we’ll be giving you a significant discount on Trapcode Form.
You can find the tutorial here. Please let us know what you think by commenting below.
Tags: 24, AE, After Effects, Binary, Form, Transition, Trapcode
December 7th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Wow. Great work Aharon.
Looking forward to the second part.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:54 am
this was great this helped me out
randy mann
December 8th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Hey Aharon, great job as usual! I haven’t even see the tutorial, yet… but we can see by the sample movie what a great effect that is. Thanks once again for your expertise.
December 8th, 2008 at 6:44 am
a 25 minute tutorial… is that some sort of a dare Aharon?!
I’ve never partook of the Trapcode Form, but if this tutorial is anything like your AE tutorials, then I’m sure it will be easy to follow.
Looking forward to see the progress of this site – it’s very exciting, and thanks for all the help in the past -
Roberto Serrini
December 8th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Thanks Aharon,
very interesting tut, gave me a good entry to TC-Form.
I think 25 minutes is a good length for such a tut!
Cant wait to see whats next…
December 9th, 2008 at 3:11 am
25 minutes, but very interesting 25 minutes.
Thanks Aharon, i`ve learn something new again.Creative work, that helps me improve my After Effects skills. I`am very heppy when i learn something so much creative, and effective trick or tip.
Keep up the good work!!
December 9th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Well, you just made a sale for Red Giant! I had been holding off on buying Form because my brain couldn’t wrap itself around the plug in’s concept. Thanks for breaking it down as only you can.
I knew from your absence on the Cow that you must be up to something big! (Besides raising a daughter) Keep these coming, I own lots of Red Giant plug ins but have little time to play & learn on my own.
Thanks! Chris