How To Make a Lyric Video For Youtube. Lesson For Beginners #1
In this lesson I’d like to teach you how to make a good looking lyric video for youtube. We will use the latest single of Dj. Snake feat Justin Bieber – “Let Me Love You”. After reading this tutorial you’ll be able to create professional looking simple lyric videos for your songs, for popular tracks, for releases of your band, for everyone!
1. Install After Effects software
2. File > New Project (Ctrl + Alt + N)
3. Composition > New Composition (ctrl + N)
4. File > Import File (Ctrl + I). Import your audio and drag it to a timeline.
5. Layer > New Text (ctrl + Alt + Shift + T)
6. Holding CTRL (depends on a version of AE) move time indicator to a place where lyrics start
7. Check it out, it sounds like “I Used To Believe”
7a. Move this layer here
Then make such layers for other words. Little lifehack – Use combo Ctrl+D for
duplicating a previous text layer. Then sync a bit more words now. Looks like we’ve got some stuff here and we may start working on animation.
8. But before, we have to make right positions for these layers.
9. Very important thing in lyric video production – to make a moving camera.
For this: Layer > New Null Object (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + Y) and Layer > New Camera (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + C). Choose all layers and make it 3D.
10. Connect Camera with Null
11. Let’s get back to words.
*While you’ll be moving this, move only with 3 dimensions. All layers should be in one plane. And here, is the most creative part in production. You may do with your lyrics – all what you want! Place it how you want, rotate, change scale and etc..
12. So. as you see I’ve changed camera position and rotation settings. To animate
something you just need to make a keyframe. Any animation = difference between keyframes. Also, as you see, I’ve added 2 keyframes to Scale of the layer “I Used”.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N_zNI6qfMc[/embedyt]
13. For layers “to + believe” I’ve decided to make a cool effect of bounce. For this,
I’ve changed “Anchor Point” settings. It’s very important. Added 2 keyframes to “X Rotation” parameter. Looks not bad, but let’s improve this.
14. Let’s add some code to our animation, we have to make it a bit more realistic. For this just choose “X Rotation” again and choose Animation > Add Expression. In the next field paste this code:
n = 0;
if (numKeys > 0){
n = nearestKey(time).index;
if (key(n).time > time){
n–;
}
}
if (n == 0){
t = 0;
}else{
t = time – key(n).time;
}
if (n > 0){
v = velocityAtTime(key(n).time – thisComp.frameDuration/10);
amp = 0.04;
freq = 1;
decay =1 ;
M=Math.sin(freq*t*2*Math.PI)/Math.exp(decay*t);
value + v*amp*M;
}else{
value;
}
Copy-paste these keyframes to the word “Believe”. Now, this phrase is looking nice. May be it should be a bit longer on the screen, but we have go to the next phrase 🙂 Also, don’t forget to cut those layers which have left the screen. To avoid their appearance on the next scenes.
14. For “We were burnin'” I’ve used Scale and X Rotation parameters with expression. Just copy it from previous layers.
15. “On the edge” is animated with “Opacity”.
16. “Of something beautiful” is animated with “Anchor Point” and “Opacity”.
Wow, looks like we’ve animated 5 seconds of lyrics. Congratulations!
It’s already looks like a typical lyric video, but…
This black screen makes me feeling a bit bored. Let’s add an artwork of this single to the background.
17. File > Import file, and we are getting an artwork in our file manager. Drag it to
our timeline. Well, looks like we have to change text color to make it visible. Play
with colors a bit, choose what do you like and what is looking nice. Also, I’d suggest to add Layer > Drop Shadow. It will add some contrast.
Also, let’s make a background a bit blurry, to make it easier. Just find any blur in
“Effects & Presets” and drag it on your background image. I’ve used “Gaussian Blur” with “Bluriness” on 33.
Better now, but still not the best what we can get in this how to make a lyric video
lesson. I want to add some life to the background, let’s make it moving a bit.
18. For this, I’m just adding a plugin AfterShake_Null by Videocopilot. You may
download it from: http://www.videocopilot.net/presets/after_shake/
And after draging it to our background, our image is moving like crazy..
Not what I’ve been looking for.
19. We have to change “Speed” “Amount” and “Rotation” parameters now. Let’s make it 1, 25 and 5.
20. Now I want to show you one pretty simple but important thing. It makes better everything, not in lyric video production. All motion designers use it. Choose all
layers and turn on “Motion Blur” box. Looks better, isn’t it?
21. And now we just have to render this scene. It may be difficult for you, if this is
your first time in After Effects. But I’ll write a big FAQ about it in my next lesson.
Well, we’ve done a good job now. This lyric video scene is looking simple but pretty nice now. Now you have enough knowledge to make your first full lyric video. If you want to get more lessons like this, and to learn more about lyric video industry – please subscribe!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE7EjF7fUgY[/embedyt]
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