Wow, I’m so amazed - speechless, even - at the overwhelming response to my efforts to give blogging a shot. I’ll probably get better (and more consistent) at this as time goes on, so check back often and have patience with me! I’m considering creating and selling some of my own training for this site in topics that I can’t cover at lynda.com (such as CS4 training in Photoshop, Premiere, etc.). I don’t know how profitable that would be, but you’ll hear about it here first!

This weeks blog is about some great resources out there that I want you all to know about. Just like me, they’re all over the place in a variety of disciplines, but hopefully you’ll find something you dig.

DETONATION FILMS - Found at detonationfilms.com, Detonation Films sells (and often just GIVES AWAY FOR FREE!!) really cheap video clips of explosions, sparks, smoke, blood spatter, fireballs, and other things that really turn me on. They are a family owned company, and its policies are dictated by awesomeness. For all of you aspiring filmmakers and those playing with After Effects, this site is a MUST!

GREENLAYERS - If you have a little cash, greenlayers.com is a place you might consider spending it. Greenlayers.com sells video clips that are PRE-KEYED!! That means that they’ve already had the backgrounds removed for you, so you can just composite them in your shots. They have clips in a variety of genres, and a great search engine. It’s a great idea. You will be hearing a lot more about this site in time. I predict that it will be BIG.

*TUTS.COM - There’s a new family of tutorial websites that I’m digging quite a bit. PSDTUTS.COM is a Photoshop tutorial site, AUDIOTUTS.COM is an audio tutorial site (with a GREAT tutorial on using the ReWire protocol with Propellerhead’s Reason and Apple’s Logic Pro), and also AETUTS.COM, which has After Effects tutorials. The site is mostly free as far as I can see, and it’s mostly good stuff. I think they also have a vector design site as well, but I don’t remember what it’s called.

STU’S BLOG - If you’ve been playing around with After Effects for a while, you’ve probably heard of Stu Maschwitz. He’s a god in the AE world. Just amazing. He has a blog that is SO LEGIT. He always lets you know what cameras are coming out and what he thinks of them. The blog is at prolost.com. He also has a book that I HIGHLY recommend called The DV Rebel’s Guide - it’s about how to make pro looking movies at home (and that tends to be a reoccuring topic from Stu, who also created the visual effects studio The Orphanage).

GOOD TUTORIALS - One of my favorite Photoshop tutorial sites has always been good-tutorials.com. The tutorials there are easy to understand, clearly laid out, for all skill levels, and now they even have expanded to include other programs, such as 3DS Max.

AYATO - Some of the BEST AE tutorials I’ve seen are at http://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e.html. The tutorials there would be worth a fortune if the author sold them. But they are free! Go to this site to learn how to make some of the most common motion graphics tricks out there. Really well done tutorials that are still viable, even years later! Love this site.

OK, the next two sites, I’m a little intimidated to put up. These guys offer After Effects training on their sites, just like I offer After Effects training. The difference is, that these guys are WAY better than me at teaching, and they are WAY better than me at After Effects. Most of you will already know them well, but they will be new to some of you. I have this reoccurring nightmare that I tell people about these guys, and then everyone gets mad at me because I gave them inferior After Effects training. Oh well. Let the truth be out there, and come what may.

AHARON RABINOWITZ - This guy has an After Effects podcast, and has had it for years, over at Creative Cow (a great resource and community of video people). The link is http://podcasts.creativecow.net/after-effects-tutorials-podcast. Aharon is just amazing. He’s such a great teacher. To me, he’s kinda like this celebrity figure. Seriously. And that means a lot coming from me because I’m not impressed by celebrity. If Angelina Jolie were to show up at my house tomorrow, I couldn’t care less. But for some reason, this Aharon guy is the biggest celebrity ever. One time, at the NAB conference in Las Vegas, Aharon was presenting at the Particle Illusion booth, and I just stood there and stared at him. He probably thought I was a stalker. But I’ve always regretted that I was too chicken to introduce myself and say hello. This guy has been my hero for a lot of years, because of his After Effects skills and knowledge, his ability to teach, and the fact that his voice is like 3 octaves lower than mine.

VIDEO COPILOT - This amazing site, found at videocopilot.net, is run by Andrew Kramer who, like Aharon Rabinowitz, just blows my mind. Andrew is so funny and his art skills are so much better than mine, it’s just amazing. I’m part of this elite group of nerds that gets access to Adobe software before it’s announced to the public, and Andrew is part of that crew as well. When I make comments there, I’m like “After Effects good - [lame emoticon]“. And when Andrew makes comments, I can’t even understand what he’s talking about. It’s rare to find someone that is as artistically talented as Andrew and is such an amazing teacher. But he pulls it off, and I’m totally jealous of his mad skills.

So, that’s it for now. I’m sure I missed tons of other great crap out there, so I’ll probably end up making and appendix to this blog, but whatever. This week, I got a great question about cross platform compression - making video files on a Mac that play well on Windows and vice versa. Interesting question. So, I’m thinking about making next week’s blog about that. Let me know what you think!

Also, be sure and check out Todd’s contest below. Pretty sweet. I’m going to get back to recording After Effects CS4 Beyond the Basics for lynda.com. Those of you that are subscribers there are in for a treat! This title is going to be so legit! I’ve even made a new little project we’re going to be looking at, which you can look at here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K63TQa0hQA - this is the unfinished version, but you get the idea. That’s also Detonation Films fire exploding in the background!

As always, thanks for your support everybody!  -Chad

PS Since this is my blog and I can talk about whatever I want, I just wanted to point out that the season finale of Yo Gabba Gabba last week had Jack Black on it, and it was the most pants crappingly funny thing I’ve ever seen. Whether you’re a fan of the Aquabats, or kids shows, or Jack Black, or laughing, I HEARTILY recommend catching that puppy somehow!

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