Cellphone Commercial: Animating the Exclamation Mark!

Topics covered in this After Effects tutorial:

Revealing the Exclamation Mark “Stick” with Mattes, Revealing the “Dot” Shape Layer, Maintaining Shape Layer Stroke Width, Adding & Copying an Expression

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

We’ve done a lot of hard work with Janet’s phone screen, so it’s time to break out the champagne and create a fun animation! In this exercise, we’ll finish compositing graphics onto the phone by adding an exclamation mark that covers the Cellphone logo in the close-up shot. We’ll reveal it in sync with the motion of Janet’s hand, so it appears like she’s drawing this exciting graphic on-screen.

Previewing What You’ll Make in This Exercise

1. On the Desktop, navigate to Class Files > After Effects Level 2 Class > Cellphone > Finished Clips and double–click Cellphone-Exclamation Mark.mov.

2. Play the video and notice the hand “drawing” an exclamation mark onto a screen.

3. You should still have yourname-Cellphone.aep open in After Effects. If you closed it, re-open it now. We recommend you finish the previous exercises (3A–4B) before starting this one. If you haven’t finished them, do the following:

   • Open Cellphone-Ready for Exclamation Mark.aep (from the Cellphone > Finished AE Projects folder).
   • Save the file as yourname-Cellphone.aep in the Cellphone folder.

Setting Up for the Reveal

1. Switch to the Cellphone-MAIN Timeline tab if you aren’t already there.

2. Double–click the [3-Janet-CUphone] layer.

3. In the 3-Janet-CUphone tab, double–click the [ExclamationPt-HDsize] layer. (Remember, this is what we tracked to the screen in a previous exercise.)

4. If nothing is displayed in the Composition panel, press Home (or Fn–Left Arrow).

5. Within the ExclamationPt-HDsize tab, double–click the [ExclamationPt-Portrait] layer. We’ll be animating this pre-comp so the exclamation mark wipes on, covering up the Cellphone logo in the process.

6. Let’s lock the entire composition so we don’t accidentally make changes to it. Go to the top left of the Composition panel and click the Toggle Viewer Lock icon to the left of the ExclamationPt-Portrait tab.

   In the previous exercise, it was very helpful to see the mask for the rotoscoping next to the composition that contained this mask. We also need this type of setup for the animation we’re about to do, because we won’t be able to time the exclamation mark’s wipe if we can’t see where Janet’s hand is in the master composition!

7. Because we aren’t using any masks, we won’t need to use the Layer panel like we did previously. So we’ll need to display two Composition panels side-by-side. At the top of the Composition panel, click on the name ExclamationPt-Portrait and choose New Comp Viewer.

8. At the top of the new Composition panel that opens, click on 3-Janet-CUphone to view the comp with this name.

   You should see the contents of the phone screen on the left, and the scene as a whole on the right.

9. Make sure the following settings apply to both Composition panels (to change a setting, be sure to click into the affected panel first):

   • We don’t need the title safe grid. Instead of clicking the button , just press the apostrophe (') key. This is a quick way to toggle the grid on and off.
   • At the top left of both of these Composition views, make sure they are locked .
   • Make sure that the Resolution is set to Full and they are both set to Fit.

10. We need more room to work. Instead of dragging a panel into the area where the Project panel usually is, press Cmd–Zero (0) (Mac) or Ctrl–Zero (0) (Windows) to hide the Project panel.

11. Adjust the size of the two views so that you can see both of them well.

12. Click the ExclamationPt-Portrait view (which should be on the left) and press the backslash (\) key. This handy shortcut shows the corresponding Timeline tab.

13. Take a look at the layers provided for us in ExclamationPt-Portrait. Click on the Matte reveal layer and press P.

14. Drag the Y Position value to the right to see that an exclamation graphic is revealed. We just need to sync this reveal with the movement of the finger.

15. Undo the Position changes you just made.

16. To avoid confusion, lock the following layers:
    • tmo-logo Outlines
    • both White Solid layers (Layers 3 and 5)
    • top Excl
    • BG

17. Notice that the layer colors are set to show which mattes correspond to which graphics. The Cellphone logo (tmo-logo Outlines) is alpha matting the Matte reveal layer, while the top exclamation point (top Excl) and dot (dot) are alpha inverted matting their corresponding solids.

Revealing the Exclamation Mark’s Stick

1. In the ExclamationPt-Portrait tab in the Timeline, move the playhead to the point where Janet’s finger touches the screen around 0;17.

2. Notice that the parent 3-Janet-CUphone composition on the right also shows the frame at 0;17.

   NOTE: Remember that at the beginning of the book we set the preferences to Synchronize Time of All Related Items. This means that when we move the playhead in a pre-comp, it will go to the corresponding layer in the master comp.

3. We’re only going to be animating the Y Position to reveal the exclamation mark, so click the stopwatch next to it.

4. Move the playhead to 0;19.

5. Click the Matte reveal layer and move it down with the Arrow keys so its Y Position is around 1200.

6. Adding too many keyframes can cause an unsightly “wobble,” so we need just enough to keep the exclamation mark reveal in sync with the position of Janet’s finger. We already determined the sweet spot—adding keyframes 4 frames apart. Go to 0;23.

7. Click the Matte reveal layer and move it down so its Y Position is around 1512.

8. At 0;27 set Y Position to around 1960.

9. At 1;01 set Y Position to around 2232.

10. Let’s preview what we’ve done. Click on the 3-Janet-CUphone view and press the backslash (\) key to show its tab in the Timeline.

11. Go to around 2;27 and press the Spacebar to preview. You should see Janet’s finger revealing the top of the exclamation mark.

Revealing the Dot & Keeping Its Stroke Width Consistent

1. Click on the ExclamationPt-Portrait view and press the backslash (\) key to show its tab in the Timeline.

2. It looks like she touches the screen where the dot will be around 1;19. Set the playhead to 1 frame before that at 1;18.

3. Select the dot layer and press Opt–S (Mac) or Alt–Shift–S (Windows) to add a Scale keyframe.

4. Set Scale to 0%.

5. Move the playhead to 2;00.

6. Set Scale to 136%.

   The dot’s outline gets bigger, but we can’t actually see it because it is currently covered up by the Cellphone magenta.

7. Let’s move the Matte reveal layer down so we can see the dot. Select this layer.

8. Go back to 1;18, where the dot layer’s first keyframe is.

9. Set its Y Position to around 2933 so that it’s completely off-screen.

10. Scrub through with the playhead to see the dot appear and grow on the ExclamationPt-Portrait view.

11. Notice that the dot’s stroke is the same width throughout the animation because we’ve applied an expression to it. Select the dot layer and press EE.

12. On the right side of the Timeline, drag the border between the Stroke Width and the BG layer down to reveal the expression code.

13. To see what the dot would look like without the expression, click the to the right of Expression: Stroke Width.

14. Click on a blank area of the Timeline to deselect all.

15. Scrub through to see that the dot’s stroke is thin when it first starts animating, which doesn’t look good.

16. Turn the expression back on by clicking the icon. This expression ensures that the Stroke Width stays the same regardless of what the layer’s Scale value is. This looks much better in motion graphics.

17. As the dot grows, we want it to have a bit of overshoot before it settles into its final position. Go to 1;26.

18. Select the dot layer and press Shift–S to show the Scale property.

19. We want the scale here to be 120% of its final size, or 1.2x the final scale value of 136%. Next to Scale click on the value, type 136*1.2 and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows). After Effects will calculate the value of 136 x 1.2 without you needing to conjure up any rusty math skills!

20. With the keyframe at 1;26 still selected, press F9 to add an Easy Ease.

21. On the Composition panel, click the 3-Janet-CUphone view and press backslash (\).

22. Press Spacebar to preview the entire exclamation being revealed. This animation is complete!

23. Collapse the layers in the Timeline and close the tabs other than Cellphone-MAIN.

24. Go to Window > Workspace > Reset “Standard” to Saved Layout.

25. Save the project and leave it open. We’ll continue working on it in the next exercise.

    Copying an Expression

    If you want to add the Stroke Width expression to other instances of shape layers, it’s fairly simple.

    1. Select the layer with the expression (in our case, dot) and press EE to show the expression.
    2. Click into the expression text field on the right and select all.
    3. Copy the expression text.
    4. Go to the shape layer you want to add the expression to and find its Stroke Width. (Expand its Contents then anything grouped with that until you find the Stroke # you want to modify.)
    5. Opt–click (Mac) or Alt–click (Windows) on the stopwatch next to Stroke Width.
    6. In the text field on the right side, paste the expression.