Creating credits sequence with 1,000+ names?

[Coooooper]

Hey all.

A client wants me to create a rolling credits sequence to thank their 1,100 employees. They have all of the names in an Excel spreadsheet.

I know that I can import a CSV file of the names, but then I would have to manually pull each of the names out of the CSV file once it's in the comp. Is there any way of automating this?

Ideally, each name would be its own text file that I can mass-align and just use a Camera to scroll. Thanks in advance to anyone that can help!

[Rick Gerard]

I would load the names in a comp width but very tall Illustrator file. You may be able to open the Excel spreadsheet and arrange the names in 3 or 4 columns. Then you could export a PDF, open that in Illustrator, then finalize the font and color. Import the AI file into After Effects or even Premiere Pro (my first choice) and animate the Y position so that it takes about 7 seconds for a name to travel from the bottom of the screen to the top. You'll also want to make sure that the layer moves up an even number of pixels per frame to avoid judder and aliasing problems with the fonts. 

The last thing I would try and do with a project like this is to load all 1,000 names in AE or Premiere Pro as text. It would be way too much work.

[OussK]

First, I don't think it's ideal to scroll the Camera to show 1100 names, you should animate the name themself.

For me, I think the best way is to copy every 50 or 100 names and past them in AE inside a paragraph text box set the font and color you want, then animate the position of that layer, then you can duplicate this composition and add new names, and finally put all the compositions in one final comp, I create a simple tutorial, explain my idea, i do it super quick and sure you can improve the process

https://youtu.be/gQ65rw04wN0 

Note: this idea will not work if you want to set a different style for each name, or maybe different position, it work only with simple credit style 

[Andrew Yoole]

I'm with Rick - don't do the text management in AE, it's too cumbersome.

Personally, I'd reduce your spreadsheet to one column of names, save as a text file, open that in a word processor, copy the text.

Create an Illustrator file that is 22000 lines x 500 lines.  (That allows 20 lines per name with spacing x 1100 names).

If, as Rick suggests, you want to have columns of names instead of one column, you can do the math to make the document shorter in length.

Paste in your text and format to fill the document. Save.

Import the Illustrator document to AE and animate the position from bottom to top.  Use Rick's great advice re: speed.  

Don't use a camera to do the scroll animation, too cumbersome.  Just animate the position of the text layer.  You could tilt the layer in 3D slightly to make it a bit more interesting (Star Wars intro style) if you want to get fancy.