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Post #1164221

Author
Jackpumpkinhead
Parent topic
Help Wanted: Making a PERFECT Crawl
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1164221/action/topic#1164221
Date created
28-Jan-2018, 8:22 AM

Sir Ridley said:

Illustrator is probably not a bad idea once you know how to format everything. I did it inside After Effects just so I could tilt and edit the text on top of the real crawl and line everything up.

So, specifics. My text is in a separate 4K composition where I do all the movement (excluding gate weave, getting to that later) and fading of the text. Apparently my focal length is 50mm. Don’t know how I ended up with that number, but it works. Although I have to stretch the text layer about 200%. Maybe 23mm and no stretch works just as well, but this is what I ended up with. 36mm film. Aperture 25,5.

The angle is -79,8 (for matching the TFA crawl). Since this composition is where I edit the text I also keep a guideline layer to see how wide the paragraphs should be. And on the text layer I have a bunch of effects. A yellow Glow, to make the text a tiny bit thicker. And then a Refine Hard Matte which makes it a bit thicker again and smudges out some details when it goes blurry in the distance. And then a 0,5% Camera Lens Blur which doesn’t do much. And then a Set Matte which adds that little gradient fade in the distance of the text. A Simple Choker which makes the edges a bit less soft and more contrasty. A soft red Drop Shadow which makes the edges of the text warm and cozy. And finally a Fast Blur that just softens everything a bit. Now, all this may sound like nitpicking (and it is), but have a look at this with/without effects image and you can see it’s not completely pointless: https://i.imgur.com/SvKgO9O.jpg

And then on to the composition where I put everything together. I scale down the text layer to 50%. And then for the gate weave I put a Transform effect on the layer (you could use the built in Transform property, but this way it’s easy to turn on or off). Alt-click the stopwatch for Position and type in the expression: wiggle(6,0.5). This gives the text a slight jittery motion. Aaaand that’s it. Sprinkle some film grain on top if you want.

TV’s Frink said:

I thought it was Fake News Gothic.

It’s real. The News, the Gothic. All of it.

Well…this is helpful! What version of after effects did you use? Also I was under the impression you also added a chromatic abrasion, and lense distortion effect to the crawl as well? Ive been tweaking the project I made in blender to mimic Adys crawl, (but his is also more of the PT style) and also give it that OT feel as well. But this helps to see your exact method. I may try and apply some of these principles to my project just so I can make a template that is more universal and accessible to the community.