How to make random jump- cut editing expression?

[Guest]

I'm wondering if there is an expression that can cut(edit) a layer of footage. I have a clip of a person dancing in a room. They start in the back left corner of the room,then move to the front center of the room and then to the back right corner of the room. I want to cut this up in every three second, so the dancer is at one place three second and then jump cuts to another location next three second. I want it jump around in my clip every three second and each segment  last "segLength"  3 sec.

I am running After Effects CC 2019 on Windows 10.

[Dave_LaRonde]

Use Premiere Pro for this -- much easier.

[Guest]

Do you know how can i change this code from random jump cuts to every three second jump cut?

segLength = .5; //seconds

dur = out_point - in_point;

segNum = Math.floor((time - in_point)/segLength);

seed_random(segNum + 1,true);

segStart = random(dur - segLength) + in_point;

segStart + (time - in_point)%segLength

[Rick Gerard]

I would use Time Remapping.

1. Find the first frame you want in the shot and set the in point using the Footage Panel.
2. Create a new comp from the footage
3. Pre-compose the footage moving all attributes to the new comp
4. Press Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd + t to enable time remapping
5. Move the CTI to 3 seconds and set a new time remapping keyframe.
6. Move to the last frame you want to use in your video and set a marker or note the time.
7. Decide how many times you want the action to jump in the sequence - If the endpoint is at 3:00 that means you have 180 seconds of video available. If you want 10 cuts then that is one jump every 18 seconds
8. Move the CTI to 3 seconds and 1 frame and set the time value to 18 seconds
9. Delete the last time remapping keyframe
10. Add this expression: loopOut("offset")

If you check the graph editor and enable it to show expressions you should see a stairstep. If you think you would like a few frames of fast motion between the normal speed shots just drag the third keyframe out a bit. You'll end up with something like this:

This will give you an even arrangement of 3-second normal speed clips on a single layer. Just trim the comp or the layer to the last frame you want visible. If you set the third keyframe 10 frames beyond the second frame then the motion will be normal for the first 3 seconds, then the next 15 seconds of real time will only take 10 frames so the dancer will fly to the new position instead of jumping there. You could even experiment with easing the keyframes. It might look kind of cool. The Adobe Stock shot of the folks throwing a Frisbee looked pretty neat when I created this sample project. It took about 3 minutes.

[Byron Cortez]

Menu Edit / Split Layer. So you can cut the Layer and then duplicate and duplicate.

[Guest]

You mean to do that in Premiere Pro?