What do you think you can/should teach a newbie in a 45 - 60 minute session about AE?

[Overground555]

I'm going to be making a presentation for some graphic designer colleagues, and my subject will be AE. They are familiar with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. What are the things I should present to them in a 45 - 60 minute session so that they walk away with a better understand & interest in the program?

[Mohammad.Harb]

Getting started with After effects . Check the link below 

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/tutorials.html

[Overground555]

Thanks for the feedback. Looking over the list, there is a tremendous amount of content there. Are there a handful of subjects you think I can cover in 45 - 60 minutes?

[Overground555]

The focus isn't to make them a whiz at After Effects: it's more about showing them a few simple tasks, and most importantly, giving them an understanding and INTEREST in why they should learn AE.

[Mylenium]

Sorry, but ultimately that's a pointless question if you don't even say what kind of work you do/ want them to do. VFX workflows are completely different from motion graphics and there's a gigazillion other things you can do with AE. You can't get people interested in a program unless it is in some way relevant to their work.

Mylenium

[Conrad C]

If they’ve never seen After Effects before, don't make their eyes glaze over with an After Effects 101 barrage of unfamiliar terminology like project, composition, interpolation, property, etc. that they might not remember 3 hours later. Because they’re graphic designers, they might “get” After Effects much more quickly if you start from where they are: Still pixel and vector graphics. 

Take a layered Photoshop file, preferably one of theirs, and show them how to animate it in After Effects. That will lead into a fast basic intro to how keyframes work, and how they’re similar to and different from the keyframes in the Photoshop Timeline panel. Animate its effects too. Then add some quick 3D.

Take a layered Illustrator file, preferably one of theirs, and show them how it can be animated with resolution independence (continuous rasterization), and some additional cool stuff they can do with paths like use them as motion paths or effects masks. Maybe show some repeaters.

Throw some text over either composition and show off things like the text animators — the same typography they’ve worked with for years, but animated.

You can shape the presentation based on whether they are more artistic (effects and such), more about production problem-solving (content-aware fill, motion tracking, keying), or more about motion graphics (animated logos, motion graphics templates, data driven graphics…)

It won’t be hard to use up most of an hour, but that will show them what’s possible. If they aren’t familiar with the VFX side of After Effects, play a 3-minute reel of famous movie scenes made with After Effects.