Recently at my day job I have been venturing into 2D animation and motion graphics in Adobe After Effects. I had some experience with the program, but not enough to take on the project we were pursuing. It was time to do some more learning! Yes even when college is over we have to keep on educating ourselves. I started to use Skillshare, YouTube, Lynda.com and even found some things on Vimeo.
I found Skillshare to be the most effective method to start with because it forced me to have my own project and allowed me to use my own resources. That is how I met Jake Bartlett. He taught me some great stuff through his lessons on Skillshare. I couldn’t help, but wonder how he got to where he is today, so I sent him an email and here we are… Another awesome interview for the blog.
Check out my interview with Jake below…
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What’s your story? How did you get started with motion graphics?
In high school I loved making my own videos. Running around with my friends and a sony handycam was something I did on a daily basis. One summer my oldest brother came home from college and introduced me to Adobe After Effects and showed me how to make my own lightsabers. From that point on I knew I wanted to learn how to use this program. Andrew Kramer’s free tutorials at videocopilot.net were the biggest driving force behind me becoming a motion graphics artist. I’ve never taken any highschool or college courses on motion graphics or even After Effects; it all came from VideoCopilot. Andrew Kramer’s tutorials are the best out there and I learned pretty much everything I know from just going through a tutorial a day from his website throughout high school and college (and even now).
How do you stay inspired? Where do you find inspiration? What would you say influences your work?
I follow a lot of After Effects related pages on Facebook like AEscripts, Greyscale Gorilla, Motion Boutique, VideoCopilot (obviously), and have many artists that I follow through Vimeo. All of these feeds deliver a constant flow of inspirational projects for me and give me something to aspire to. Lyric videos are one of my favorite types of projects and are a huge influence on my work. I find myself clicking through video after video on youtube just to see how someone else has handled their kinetic type and what they did to make it unique.
You have some great lessons on Skillshare. What have the results been from that? Have you ever taught motion graphics before? Do you feel like teaching others has made you better at your craft?
My Skillshare experience has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve never tried teaching before, but always thought that I would enjoy it. Skillshare made it so easy for me to take a stab at teaching and it’s been an incredible experience. I’ve had an absurd amount of inquires on animation projects, and am at the point where I’m actually having to turn away work because I’m just too busy. That’s a great problem to have in our field. Plus I get to meet awesome people running amazing blogs like yours!
Teaching a class on animating in After Effects actually taught me a lot about the program because I had to explain exactly what I was trying to do to the students. That forced me to actually learn what was going on when I opened the graph editor and started pulling handles, or how the text animator properties operate.
What does the future hold for you? Will you keep pursuing motion graphics?
I’m absolutely going to continue pursing motion graphics. I love what I do and am constantly striving to become a better artist.
If someone wanted to get started in Motion Graphics, what would you tell them?
I tell everyone that asks me this question to go straight to videocopilot.net/basic and watch Andrew Kramer’s crash course. There are so many priceless tutorials on his website and he’ll get you up and running in no time!
You can find out more about Jake on his website and follow him on these socials…
Website
Vimeo
Twitter
Instagram
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Thank you so much for taking the time to interview with me Jake!
