This comment was written by Sean, a Motionworks reader:

“I was viewing an article on Creative Cow a few months ago, and like usual got side tracked and looked at some of the demo reels. The first demo reel i clicked on started with a 1:1 copy of Andrew Kramers submerged tutorial/effect. I left the site and haven’t been back since. I just watched a world cup game on the BBC and guess what, Andrew Kramers Ancient Titles had been copied, and not even that well. Pathetic.

I think that you guys have actually devalued graphic design and opened a pandora’s box scenerio in pursuit of your own self interest and ego. [Read more]

Okay, you’ve got After Effects CS5, you’ve watched the Roto Brush tutorial, and you know I love it. But what are your impressions of Roto Brush now you’ve had a chance to play? Is it what you expected? Have you used it in production? Is Roto Brush really that cool?  I’d love to hear about your experiences.

This week I received an email from Max Bretherton titled “The Never-ending Tutorial Chase”. Max finds himself overwhelmed by the abundance of tutorials available on the web and asked the following questions:

“How do you see these attractive and well devised ‘tutorial’ sites fitting into an artists work flow? Do they at all or are they just a detour – like watching a movie – that eats into valuable time? Or could we be wise and use them for the advancement of our own creative lives, work and knowledge? I struggle to find the best balance of watching great tutorials and getting work done.” [Read more]

I started in this industry in 1992, working with my brother Robin in his fledgling business development company. It was a small setup, basically Robin, myself and my father Allan in the front room of Robin’s house. More on that in an upcoming post but what I wanted to share with you now is my first motion graphics project (created in After Effects). [Read more]

Recently I was chatting with Aharon Rabinowitz about how I get value out of Twitter and Aharon suggested I record a tutorial to share with everyone. This tutorial will give you a rundown on how I’ve been using Twitter to add value for those who follow Motionworks and as a powerful business tool. [Read more]

At NAB I had a chat with John Nack (Photoshop Product Manager) about the video features of Photoshop Extended. John asked my opinion and also what features I would like to see added. I told John that I don’t use the tools much; occasionally importing footage to use a Photoshop filter that isn’t available in After Effect or exporting movies as gif files [Read more]

There are a lot tutorial sites on the web now, including Motionworks. I take time every morning to watch at least one tutorial as a way of keeping my skills sharp and up-to-date. When watching tutorials I’m generally not looking for design ideas but rather technique and workflow. If it’s something that looks like “the next big look in motion graphics” [Read more]

You can probably imagine I am contacted regularly by people asking for advice, tips, tutorials and the like, and I’m always happy to help when I can. Something that does annoy me is when emails are signed “Thanks in advance”. By signing “thanks in advance” you are implying you won’t have time later to thank the person for doing you a favour, [Read more]

When working in the world of motion, time acts as a continual constraint against our approach and workflow. It acts as the major limitation to our practices within the commercial realm. Deadlines exist, corners need to be cut, chopped and even recycled when necessary. Time is a necessary measure and with adequate time-saving measures in place [Read more]

The so-called global financial crisis seems to have hit some countries harder than others. Here in Australia it’s in the news almost every day but apart from a diving share market and dollar value, reduced business and consumer sentiment, and the threat of increased unemployment, so far things seem to be generally unchanged. My job seems as busy as ever, with plenty of work coming through the door. How has the crisis affected you? Have you lost your job? Are you freelancing and finding it harder to find work? I’m curious to know how the motion graphics industry is being affected around the world.

Last year I had to sell all my studio equipment, including my trusty PowerMac with all its lovely RAM. The only computer I have presently is my trusty PowerBook G4 with 1 Gig of RAM. Lest you feel sorry for me, don’t. Rendering may take a lot longer than it used to, but this little power house has helped me produce some wonderful motion graphic designs. [Read more]

I work in Television as a News Anchor. In my spare time and off hours, I study 3D motion graphics by reading, doing and visiting great sites like Motionworks. JD’s latest post on his newest boxing promo sparked a question that he asked me to post here. By way of background, one of my goals working in daily TV news is to keep things looking fresh. [Read more]

Okay so we’re getting a good idea of what Adobe After Effects plug-ins each other uses on a regular basis. It’s quite understandable that so many of you use utility effects like Curves and Levels, and 3rd party effects like Particular regularly, which is such a versatile plug-in. Now let’s share thoughts on effects we avoid, prefer not to use [Read more]

Okay everyone it’s confession time, answer the following two questions:
1. Which effect included with Adobe After Effects do you use the most?
2. Which 3rd party plug-in for Adobe After Effects do you use most?
For me it is a close contest between Fast Blur and Curves… with Curves probably the winner. I had to think hard about No.2 [Read more]