On Tue, 24 Dec 2002 03:30:03 -0500, "TJM" wrote:

>It's a motion graphics compositor for video - basically "special effects".
>Since Premiere is designed to be an editor, After Effects is a full-blown
>compositor that can do just about anything you want it to. I doubt you
>could render all the special effects for the Matrix or Star Wars sequels
>with it, but its a good program to learn the fundamentals of video motion
>graphics.
>
>AE is a difficult program to learn, and requires many years of experience to
>master. It takes just as much artitistic skill as technical comprehension
>to exploit its full potential. However, starting off with easy projects and
>progressing to more difficult effects as your skills improve will make the
>process fun.
>
>Like the other poster, I recommend starting off with a good tutorial book to
>learn the basics. You may also want to check out the various learning
>videos like Total Training and such. They allow you to work on project
>files along with the tutor to give you a hands-on learning experience.
>
>I've tinkered with AE for a couple yrs but the steep learning curve kept me
>from exploring it any further. After reading a few books on it and dabbling
>in training tapes, I am enjoying it a lot more and seeing how much cool
>stuff you can do with it.

After Effects has been a total disaster for me...;-(
I've owned it a couple of times, and had been unable
even to start a project with it. About a week ago, I
tried it again, and this time managed to start a
project, import material, and figure out the keyframing.
There are some things that do not work well using
Premiere with DV (without considerable ugly artifacting):
simple titles moved/resized over motion-video; stills
zoomed/moved; motion-video resized/moved; chroma-keying.
My first attempts with an imported still scanned larger
than 720x480 and simply moved were a disaster - the
results looked worse than if done in Premiere using a
transition, the "motion" tool, or the "image pan"
filter (and none of these produced acceptable results).
Searching various menu items in AE, I was able to
specify interlacing characteristics, etc., but I'm
missing something MAJOR, unfortunately, if the results
I've seen are not the best this program can do (there
is too much evidence that AE can do what I want,
though, to believe it is this bad...;-).
I've given up on it, again...