A Conversation with Evan Sussman
We don’t often post this type of thing here, but you could help a young filmmaker win the contest of a lifetime… and he’s EXTREMELY talented. Evan Sussman’s film short, Escape, is a fantastic voyage into a freedom from the stresses of modern life. It is a contender for a $30,000 prize from The Doorpost Film Project. If you like the film, please vote for it!
Evan talks about how he created the film, including the special effects, working with expressions in After Effects and using Trapcode plugins. Read the full interview here
Plug-ins for $99 and under for After Effects/Premiere Pro & Final Cut Pro/Motion
I’m sure most of you are starting to feel the economic crunch, so we’ve put together a section for plug-ins that are $99 and under. These are useful plug-ins by well known plug-in developers like Red Giant, Trapcode, Digieffects, Noise Industries, Nattress and others.
If you’d like to take the plug-in for a test drive before you buy it, most of the plug-ins are available for download on our demos/trial page: http://www.toolfarm.com/demo/demo.php
12 Days of Freebies: Toolfarm’s Holiday Gift to our Loyal Customers
If you haven’t stopped by Toolfarm in a few days, you’re missing The 12 Days of Freebies, our gift to our dear customers. We want to know how much we have appreciated your business in 2008 and we hope that our relationship will continue long into the Millennium.
Toolfarm will be unlocking a new freebie each weekday until December 24th, kind of like an Advent Calendar, minus the chocolate all over your fingers.
Download some free holiday schwag here!
Freebies will include templates, project files, stock footage, and more; stay tuned!
- Day 1 – an After Effects CS3 template for a 3D Greeting Card
- Day 2 – a fantastic holiday tree template from LME.
- Day 3 – a gorgeous tree ornament created with Conoa 3D.
- Day 4 – Eye Scream Factory Binary Code DVD Template.
We will have lots of other goodies lined up, including freebies from Pond5, Professional Video Templates, free presets for plug-ins and more. Day 5 will be uploaded on Monday. What will it be? Is the suspense killing you?
Toolfarm Needs Your Opinions! Win Free Stuff!
We strive to be a useful resource for the mograph community from initial purchase through end support. We’re in the process of redoing our site, and would like your input! Your responses will not be shared with anyone and will directly impact our future site- and your online experience with us. Your opinions matter!
FMC Review: Trapcode Form Training with Harry Frank
Dave Basulto of Filmmaking Central reviews Trapcode Form Training with Harry Frank and gives it a perfect score.
I give Trapcode Form Training with Harry Frank a whopping 5/5 stars for well explained training and ROI. You can pick up the training at ToolFarm.com. I highly recommend Trapcode Form Training with Harry Frank for anyone wanting to get going with Form fast.
Congratulations on the great review, Harry. Trapcode has also endorsed the training. It is really excellent training.
AE Training Round-Up, Free After Effects Comps from The Anvel
Ko Maruyama has posted a blog entry at Ninja Crayon about the training that is available for After Effects and happens to mention three of our Forum Experts, Harry J. Frank, John Dickinson and Dean Velez.
Harry’s training is available just this week and to say it’s selling well would be an understatement! After Effects Expressions hits a niche where there is really not a lot of training and Harry’s training is fun to watch and easy to absorb. It’s downloadable immediately and is affordable at just $29 for 60 minutes of Expressions training. It is designed for the designer, not the programmer, and it will take your Expressiophobia away.
- After Effects Expressions 01: Introduction to Expressions Duration: 20 Minutes
- After Effects Expressions 02: Introduction to Arrays and Variables Duration: 20 Minutes
- After Effects Expressions 03: 3D Text Duration: 20 Minutes
- After Effects Expression Series 1 Bundle Duration: 60 Minutes
John Dickinson’s Creative Background Design Series has also been very popular. John currently has six modules in his series and he uses some innovative techniques and explains several shortcuts that will help your workflow. John’s training is just $5 a pop and great for the beginner or seasoned veteran.
- Creative Background Design for After Effects 01: Basic Fractal Loop – Free Sample
- Creative Background Design for After Effects 02: Award Night
- Creative Background Design for After Effects 03: Venetian Blocks
- Creative Background Design for After Effects 04: Fractal Flower
- Creative Background Design for After Effects 05: Molten Cells
- Creative Background Design for After Effects 06: Rose Window
Dean Velez puts out training through his company, The Anvel. His training, The Anvel Industry Training for AE is incredible. I showed my class some of the training last semester and they were completely into it. People actually stuck around until the end of class instead of bagging class after an hour 
Just yesterday, Dean posted the following to our Expert Forum:
Hello Video, Film and Web guys and gals,
The Anvel has just posted 29 new royalty free and fully customizable After Effects 7.0 Professional projects ready for download.
The Projects all deal with Text and adding effects to text. They cover the letters A-Z ( Aura, Balls, Cosmic, Destroy, Electric, Extrude, Fire, Glimmer, Hose, Ice, Join, Killer, Laser, Magnify, Nature, Odor, Paint, Quartz, Road, Strange, Tear, Universe, Vile, Web, Wind, X-Ray, Yank, Zoom )
Some are render intensive…so prerender when you can.
Hope you enjoy them! and drop me a line to let me know which one is your favorite…mine is Killer.
Dean is always posting awesome free stuff every month or two, so you’d be doing yourself a big service to go to our forum and hang out. Ask some questions while you’re there and guys like Harry and John will answer your questions.
Ko also mentions Aharon Rabinowitz’s quality training. Aharon runs After Effects NY user group, which met last night and Toolfarm gave away Harry’s new training at the meeting. I hear the meeting was great, with Curious Pictures showing their Disney Channel program, Little Einsteins ("Come on! Wave your arms to make our ship fly faster!" and so you can hear some Vivaldi… oh, I’m sure you’ve seen it!)
Harry’s Expression Training is now Available!
Expressions Demystified… Written for the Designer
Harry J. Frank, freelance motion graphics artist, instructor and Adobe Certified Expert, goes over the basics of Expressions – Expressions for the average designer. Harry teaches you the terminology and the tricks and even explains a bit of basic trigonometry (but don’t worry, it won’t bring back repressed high school math class memories!) Before you know it you will be adding Expressions everywhere. This training will add value to your technique and expand your After Effects skillset.
All project files are included, along with a Quick Reference Guide to help you learn Expressions in the most efficient way possible. You’re not going to get this kind of quality training anywhere else and this series is ONLY available at Toolfarm.
Want the training modules individually or in a bundle?
This 3 part series on After Effects Expressions is available lesson by lesson. The bundle of the three lessons is available at a discount.
- After Effects Expressions 01: Introduction to Expressions Duration: 20 Minutes
- After Effects Expressions 02: Introduction to Arrays and Variables Duration: 20 Minutes
- After Effects Expressions 03: 3D Text Duration: 20 Minutes
- After Effects Expression Series 1 Bundle Duration: 60 Minutes
Harry has been a Toolfarm Forum Expert from about the time the Forums went up and runs Gray Machine, a very popular motion graphics site with tutorials and samples of work. Harry is also half of the relaunched AE Freemart.
Three New Plugged-In Podcasts available, recorded live at NAB!
Keith and Alan recorded the podcast live at NAB…. and it’s a HUGE Triliogy of HOT shows!
Podcast 2 recorded at the Toolfarm Party on Sunday night at the MGM Grand
Exclusive interviews with the tops in the industry including Paul Babb, President of Maxon (Cinema 4D), Zax Dow of Zaxwerks, Christoph Vonhreim of CHV-Electronics, Debbie Rich of Digital Anarchy, John Dickinson of Motionworks, Niclas Bahn of Noise Industries, and Jason Sharp, President of Toolfarm.
Podcast 3: Live Interviews at the IMUG Media Motion Ball
Interviews Chris & Trish Meyer, Rob Birnholtz from Absolute Motion Graphics, Wes Plate of Automatic Duck, Frank Capria of Xprove, Brian Maffitt of Total Training.
Podcast 4: Interviews from The Promax Digital Cafe at the Empire Ball Room
Exclusive interviews with Carey Dissmore of IMUG, Phil Hodgetts of the Digital Production Buzz Podcast, Barbara Dehart of Telestream, Jason Levine Sr. Worldwide Evangelist of Adobe Systems or something like that… a really long title, and Dan Hatch of ProMax.
There are two ways to listen to the podcasts in iTunes:
Or Launch iTunes and you’ll be taken to the podcast page, without subscribing.
If those links do not work for you, you can do it manually.
- Copy this link to your clipboard.
- Launch iTunes. Go to Advanced > Subscribe to podcast.
- Paste the URL and click Okay.
A Conversation with Jim Geduldick on The Wonder Pets!
The Wonder Pets! is an adorable animated series that airs on Nick Jr./Noggin, aimed at the pre-k audience. It was created by the award-winning team at Little Airplane Productions. Toolfarm chats with Jim Geduldick, who is a Senior Editor but wears a lot of other hats in the production of the show.
Gather the kids around the computer and spend some quality family time! Read the interview and see some cuter-than-puppies-wrapped-in-kittens screen shots.
Toolfarm to Manage Red Giant Software Forums, Toolfarm Site Redesign
New Toolfarm Web Site Launched
Toolfarm, Inc., the leading third-party distributor of After Effects plug-ins and visual effects tools today announced that it is now managing the forums for Red Giant Software, including Trapcode plug-ins, and just launched a new web site.
Quick Links to Red Giant Software Forums
- Magic Bullet Suite, Magic Bullet Editors, and Magic Bullet Colorista
- Trapcode Plug-ins (Published by Red Giant Software)
- All Other Red Giant Software Plug-Ins
Users can log onto these forums to get help from the Red Giant Support Team, Toolfarm, and some of the top motion graphics artists, including: Dean Velez—awarded two Emmy’s for animation and has been nominated seven times for various graphics projects and Matt Silverman—Creative Director at Phoenix Edit, Effects, and Design in San Francisco.
Check out the Toolfarm site for other forums, including Adobe applications such as After Effects, Premiere Pro and Photoshop, and Apple Final Cut Studio, including Final Cut Pro and Motion.
The new Toolfarm web site provides a streamlined look and feel, plus offers a cleaner navigation. There is also a brand new database of tutorials at Toolfarm, which allows visitors to search by categories and see what is new or popular. The tutorial pages have been redesigned for better retention and new tutorials have been added. The free demos area has been re-programmed with stronger security features and updated with new demos. Plus, The Inspirations section is now broken into categories for easier reading. Harry Frank, of Gray Machine, has joined the Inspirations team to post the most interesting, creative and technical videos on the web.
About Toolfarm Inc.
Toolfarm.com, based in San Francisco since 1999, is the leading third-party reseller of After Effects Plug-ins and visual effects tools. Known also for distribution, publishing, service and training, it has become the de facto standard as the one-stop shop for Adobe After Effects Plug-ins as well as motion graphics tools. It also hosts a Plug-in Finder, an online database and search engine of all plug-ins for Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and Apple Final Cut Pro.
