Hey guys... I completed this short test video in After Effects. It took about 4 hours...

Please check it out!
Thanks,
Colin Worley

LINK : http://youtube.com/watch?v=4K_04jpMqcs

i like it - have you added the camera movement yourself?

I think if I was watching, I'd stay looking at the explosion - maybe the explosion could have a bit more colour too?

I don't know your experience, but it's a great idea!

Thanks. Yeah, the shake was done by me... the reason it's so shaky is it's supposed to have a home-video feel. If a bystander saw this, they would be shocked/scared so it wouldn't be ultra smooth footage. The shakiness was just to emphasize the event that just occurred from a citizen's point of view.

(Like the movie 'Cloverfield'.)

Thanks for watching it!
Colin

That looked really well done! Care to spill the beans on if you used anything special?

Thanks man! Well actually, I didn't do anything special here. I simply got a high-resolution picture off the internet, dropped it into After Effects and worked away.

First, I added a simple camera tilt, upward. Then I began to add all of the explosions from some stock footage. Then, I linked the stock footage to the picture (so it would follow the camera's motions). I then use 'The Wiggler' inside of After Effects to create the bumps and shakes.

Lastly, I brought it into Premiere Pro to do some color correction and a few other simple things. I also added sound effects: city ambiance, two explosions, glass shattering, metal bending, etcetera...

All in all, it took a little over 4 hours to actually create, then a bunch of rendering time... (especially since I used motion blur to give it that "home movie feel".

And that's about it! ;)

Thanks to those who watched and commented,
~Colin Worley

Very, very cool dude!

If you wanted to make the camera shake a little more organic, you can shoot reference markers handheld and transplant that motion into your clip...then you can have "real" handheld footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSiFmEDl_gY

I should add though that the shot looks really good.

Thanks man! Well actually, I didn't do anything special here. I simply got a high-resolution picture off the internet, dropped it into After Effects and worked away.

First, I added a simple camera tilt, upward. Then I began to add all of the explosions from some stock footage. Then, I linked the stock footage to the picture (so it would follow the camera's motions). I then use 'The Wiggler' inside of After Effects to create the bumps and shakes.

Lastly, I brought it into Premiere Pro to do some color correction and a few other simple things. I also added sound effects: city ambiance, two explosions, glass shattering, metal bending, etcetera...

All in all, it took a little over 4 hours to actually create, then a bunch of rendering time... (especially since I used motion blur to give it that "home movie feel".

And that's about it! ;)

Thanks to those who watched and commented,
~Colin Worley

The video was fantastic...especially for a 4-hr job! I have a basic (maybe dumb) question: What's the specs of your system? I installed After Effects 7 on my laptop (dual core with 1gb ram) and tried to work with cineform avi (from m2t hdv) and it's really slow. Of course, I am absolutely new to this kind of thing. Any advice on the best way to learn this software?