Design Production for Digital//Top 10...//After Effects tutorial with Lorraine.

In today's morning session with tutor Lorraine, we discussed AUDIO application in After Effects- how to technically and appropriately achieve the right soundtrack for our final motion graphic designs. The notes below are direct dictation I took from the tutorial.

- Soundtrack = Literal sound

- Narrative = Ambient sound-0

- Use appropriately as this can greatly affect communication of your visual design.
- "Star Guitar" video by Chemical Brothers is an example of a sound sync project- visual imagery represents 
the beats.

PUTTING AUDIO INTO AE

- Import > File (audio file of your choice)- drag into working area.
- Open triangle audio tab drop-down (can edit audio sound- key frame volume).
- Waveform in editing area is a visual representation of the sound.
- Can ALSO edit audio in audio tab- top right-hand corner (try to avoid waveform volume of your audio entering the "red zone" as this means it will be too loud- try not to have the audio above the green zone if possible).

TO ASSIGN TO VISUAL BEAT

- As you play song, press Ctrl + 8 to make a marker of where the key/beat is.

AUDIO LEVELS

- Fade In/Out- Add audio levels key frame and shift audio bar as appropriate- 
"OPACITY FOR SOUND"
- Experiment with audio effects, reverb, etc. 

FOR PRINTING IMAGES

- Make 300 dpi images as screengrabs/ready to print files.

- Shrint to 72 dpi for AE.

AUDIO FILES

- MP3/MP4, AIFF/WAV

- Using compressed files (MP3/MP4) can cause "digital artifacts" as the sound quality is not rich enough.