After Effects - CS4 - Visual FX & Compositing.

A must buy from Mark Christiansen.  With just under 500 pages of useful techniques, tips and break downs of some of After Effects newest features.  I treat this book like my bible…   

These days,  if we need to find out about anything in the world, we simply pop onto google and we ask google whatever it is on our mind.   So why do I need a paperback book in 2009?  Google isn’t always the best way of learning.  Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the correct search terms or the most relevant area to locate your question.   When you’ve found what you need to search for, which, out of the hundreds of different search results,  do I choose?   Well, google searches do work brilliantly, I’m not going to lie but the internet isn’t everywhere.   The internet isn’t on the tube.  It isn’t on the beach.  Books don’t have pop ups, and certainly don’t have MSN, Twitter or facebook.    So it’s you, your book and your films.

Whether you’re a Motion Graphic artist, intergrating photoshop elements or you’re a compositor, adding 3D animations into real video sequences using motion tracking.  The possibilities that AE CS4 offer are endless.    Mark uses awesome color examples to explain in detail some great techniques.  He back’s this up with a companion DVD featuring demo’s of After Effects CS4 software, sample footage and software plugins!  

I have read a variety of books on editing software, nothing as user friendly and readble as this.  At work, if we ever have a problem in our Avid Suite we refer to this HUGE great monster of an Avid manual, telling you everything you need to know about STUFF.  But that’s just it, it’s just STUFF, it’s remains jargon and technical gobbeldy goop unless its explained well.  I fear “Fatal Exception Avid Error” knowing my only way out is via this Avid dictionary of a user manual.

Well thankfully Mark brightens things up with this CS4 book and clearly explains even for beginners, methods of approaching and tackling the most professional looking visual effects.    I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.