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DECEMBER 02, 2003 After Effects Project: Squiddies  In this After Effects Production Bundle exercise, we’ll be making some microphones “swim” through our shot. To pull this off, we’ll use an older effect from the Production Bundle – Wave Warp.
In this piece we will have a series of hand held microphones swim across the screen in a fashion that Freud would find interesting. To be honest I have forgotten where I first saw this effect; it could have been a Comedy Central show open, a print ad, or maybe even one of those weird dreams. Where ever I pulled this effect out of the ether, you will be able to create a similar effect for your own projects. [an error occurred while processing this directive] I captured the microphone and the mic cord by laying them on a sheet of foam core and shooting them with my Canon Powershot G2. For the purposes of this exercise, I wasn’t too concerned with room lighting, background, or shadows; I was able to remove the background and shadows in Adobe Photoshop – saving the file with an Alpha Channel. 
For the tail of the mic, I shot a small portion of the cable, and then cloned that portion along a straight line. Instead of cropping the image around the cable, I made sure to leave plenty of room for movement and distortion that will be handled in After Effects.  With the two images ready to go, launch your After Effects Production Bundle, and import the two files.
Related sites: • Animation Artist • Animation Supplement • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Animators • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • DV Format • Siggraph News • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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