How To Make a Kinetic Typography

Hey everybody! I don't have a video to show yet, but here is a typed tutorial on how to make a kinetic  typography. I believe it is a skill all animators need because it gives you a chance to express yourself through film or song. It is your interpretation of said film or song. But who would ever use it? That's easy-anybody who wants to learn After Effects, loves movies and/or music, and computers!

Here's what you'll need-

• After Effects
• A song or part of a movie to animate to
• Creativity
• Patience-Lots and lots of patience!

Step 1: Do you have After Effects on your computer? Great! Go into After Effects and click on-Composition-New Composition. (You should have a black screen.) Then hover on Layer-New-Solid. You may pick whichever color you choose, but I am personally going to choose red. (It's a pretty bright color!) Here is what it looks like.

Step 2: Now for the fun part! If you add a sound file to animate with, go to File-Import-File, and click on wherever your sound file is. (Desktop, Documents, etc.) You should see it come up in the Project area on the left side of the colored screen. Drag it down to the left side of your composition.

Step 3: Wanna know how to add lettering? Wonder no more! Scroll the mouse to your tool bar. There should be a T icon that is a text button. Click that and type anything on your colored screen. (Since I do not have a song for mine, I will just be adding random words.) I am going to type "Hello." On the right side of your screen, you should see the character screen for your type. You can make it bigger or smaller, spread out or close together. Here are my presets.

Step 4: Now for the greatest part-animating! Go down to wherever your type layer is and click on the arrow facing right. It will give you type and transform options. Click on the transform option. Click on position, which there should be a keyframe already set for you. If you want your type to come from the left side of the screen, hover over your starting keyframe. Move the Current Time Indicator to wherever you want your animation to end. In my case, I will end at 10 frames per second. Then move your type to the center of the screen. It should look like this. (There are also composition settings to where you can shorten your time. Click Composition-Composition Settings, and set your time. It goes from hours to minutes to seconds to frames.

There is also another way you could animate it. Stay on your type layer (mine is "Hello") and go to the icon that looks like a pen. That is your Mask tool, which you can move your type across if you wish. Here is how I have it. You can adjust it to your liking.

When you have it all set, click on the Text option in your type layer, choose Path Options-Path-Mask 1. Your type should be on the left side of the screen. (That is how I have it.) You can also choose Reverse Path to put the type on the other side of the screen. But if you would like to move your type, hover over First Margin, which will make the type go along with the mask. If you want to animate it, go to your 0 frame and click on the First Margin position key. (If you have your Position option still on, delete it.) Bring your type all the way to the right side of the screen on your mask. Then set a keyframe. Here is mine.

Or, as one more example, if you want to add swinging text, here's how to do it. Let's start over and delete our mask. Select Path-None. (You can delete the whole mask then.) Delete your keyframes and bring the Current Time Indicator to 0 frames. I'm going to go ahead and enlarge my type. Turn on your text's 3-D layer. Go to X Rotation, hover/click it, and it should drag down or up. Drag until you can't see it on the horizon line. 

X Rotation is seen here.

This is X Rotation activated. You should barely see it on the horizon line.

Now set a keyframe. Drag the X Rotation key to the left and bring your text 3/4ths of the way to the other side. Set a keyframe. Bring it back up just a little bit from the first keyframe and back down. Repeat this process until it comes all the way up. I rotated mine every 5 frames for consistency. Here is mine.

These are only a few examples on how to make your typography. If you don't want to do tons of work, there are presets already made for you. Just go to the Animation tab-Browse Presets, (which will take you to Adobe Bridge) and there should be tons of various animations to choose from. Remember to click on the text folder. You can choose to animate out or in, blur your type, and other fun options. Just remember to have fun with it! And here is a tip: Remember to animate to the exact time of your song. It can be off just by a fraction of a second. Yes, I know it can be hard the first time you complete it, but trust me- it's going to be fun. Happy Animating!