Rating: 
Summary: Industry Reviews
Review: "Angie has a knack for demystifying the intricacies of After Effects and coming up with creative uses of the features." -
Steve Kilisky, Senior Product Manager, After Effects, Adobe Systems Inc. "Angie Taylor is the best After Effects teacher I know. She goes beyond technical descriptions of features, and shows you how best to use them in real-world projects." - Bruce Bullis, Senior API Engineer, Adobe Dynamic Media, Adobe Systems Inc. "This book takes you on a roller coaster ride through the world of creating animation and special effects with Adobe After Effects. It is much more than just a software manual, Angie Taylor seeks to stimulate the creative use of computer animation. Complex technical issues are clearly and concisely explained, making it suitable for beginners and the more advanced users. Creative After Effects is the ideal companion for all students of computer animation and motion graphics." -
Birgitta Hosea, Course Director, London Animation Studio, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. Angie Taylor's work is inspired. She is a highly creative animator - inventive, witty and naturally sympathetic to individual programme's styles. - Carys Edwards, Director, Children's BBC "This book has an inventive approach to developing the creative skills of the reader. The upshot being that, whilst working through the book, readers actually create their own unique work that they can add to their portfolio, rather than spending time with unoriginal exercise material that they can't use." - DIGIT magazine
Rating: 
Summary: Helped me get my film into a festival!
Review: Angie's book is a delightful departure from standard After Effects how-to fanfare - the techniques are easily laid out in a precise, easy-to-follow step-by-step manner that had me feeling like I was a digital effects guru in minutes. Thanks to Angie's book, I successfully completed all the digital effects for my most recent film entirely by myself and now the film is scheduled to make its world premiere at a film festival in Toronto in December of 2001. Angie, I couldn't have done it without you!
Rating:
Summary: Add it to your AE resources
Review: Angie's instructional materials and projects will definitely help you learn how to begin using AE5's 3 major new features: 3D, Expressions, and Parenting. Tracking and keying get thorough treatments. She also offers some background in the history and craft of animation as well as advice on how to nurse a project through the creative mill from concept, storyboard, client pitch, and revisions.
The work is not without flaws but, compared to the other After Effects resources in print, this is a valuable book to have on your shelf, in my opinion. I enjoyed it very much.
I've got every AE resource in print, I think. Two or three of them were complete wastes of paper and you can probably find my opinions of them ...
For beginners, I always recommend Adobe's CIB for AE5. After slogging thru those projects either Angie's book or Creative Motion Graphics would beq worthy followup. For the advanced power user, there is no question that the Meyer's two books are THE standard reference pieces. For additional inspiration, another approach to effects design, and some lighthearted whimsy, Angie's book comes in a decent third place. You can see an extensive review of Angie Taylor's After Effects 5.0 book that I have written at ... david bogie, boise ID
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Angies book is absolutely fantastic. Her methods are extremely creative and versatile. The book reads like a huge tutorial although you can easily dip into any section at any time. It covers all the new features of AE5 including parenting, expressions and 3d. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to have a leading edge in their after effects work. Well done Angie!
Rating:
Summary: Increase Your Knowledge and Expand Your Abilities
Review: Creative After Effects is a no non-sense, fact-filled and easy-to-read book, period. It definitely should be a required resource in any animator or videographer's library, especially for those who are beginning in the field. Unlike many books that get bogged down in technical jargon, Taylor remains steadfast in her approach by building upon the information presented in earlier chapters and expanding one's knowledge base in an enjoyable, logical and orderly progression. The book is further complemented by a CD ROM and Web site that contains projects referred to in the book, resources for working through the exercises, pertinent articles that offer relevant information that could not be presented in the book and some free stuff. It's also an enjoyable experience when you finish a book and feel that you've gotten your money's worth: I've gotten my money's worth from this one.
Rating:
Summary: Increase Your Knowledge and Expand Your Abilities
Review: Creative After Effects is a no non-sense, fact-filled and easy-to-read book, period. It definitely should be a required resource in any animator or videographer's library, especially for those who are beginning in the field. Unlike many books that get bogged down in technical jargon, Taylor remains steadfast in her approach by building upon the information presented in earlier chapters and expanding one's knowledge base in an enjoyable, logical and orderly progression. The book is further complemented by a CD ROM and Web site that contains projects referred to in the book, resources for working through the exercises, pertinent articles that offer relevant information that could not be presented in the book and some free stuff. It's also an enjoyable experience when you finish a book and feel that you've gotten your money's worth: I've gotten my money's worth from this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Working in the real world
Review: I am torn on this one... While I feel that there is a lot that Angie and her associates who contributed to the book are able to teach people through the method of "one continuous project," I feel that about half of what she talks about isn't relavant to the majority of people using AE in the real world. In the capacity that I needed the book..(for help in learning the changes with version 5 like 3D and parenting etc. - sections SHE didn't write by the way) I found it impossible to go to look up something in the index, flip to a chapter and not have to wade through meaningless information before I found what I was looking for. Maybe some people bought the book to learn from start to finish EVERY aspect of an independant (and most likely personal) project. But where I work, storyboard artists and motion graphics artists are doing two very different jobs. If I wanted to learn how to storyboard, I would have bought a book on storyboarding... On the other hand, she gets very thorough when discussing other things like some of the technical information - which it seems is what she's best at.
Oh, another thing... I have no desire to "do my own project" over the course of the book. I know that some people might find this useful if they are just starting out and don't have too much to put on their reel...but c'mon...I barely have time to read the book, much less do an entire project. I have to sacrifice time for other things (laundry, etc.) to make time to learn the changes...as with most people working in this field...If you're on a project...you're already not getting much sleep. And if you're not, you're looking for work. Good luck making time to do a "madonna style" video... I realize that some people are probably looking for this kind of tutorial style book...and I am not knocking it because I don't think it will help you learn...but for those of us who are a few years into AE and want to brush up or learn about more complex changes for the new version...I think there are other books that are more concise.
Rating: 
Summary: More about bragging then about the application
Review: I have read many books on after effects (well just about all that are out on after effects) and this one leaves little to desire. It lacks any real direction and seems to be used more to "brag" about what projects people have worked on in there portfolio. I found very little useful information in the book. The examples were poorly written and illustrated and most of them were very simple to begin with. I would not recommend this book unless you are just interested in what people have done with after effects
Rating:
Summary: Great tutorials and great fun
Review: I've worked for a number of years as an Avid editor and have used After Effects for a variety of things, but have usually had a staff Graphics person to handle the heavy lifting. As a result, I found a had numerous holes in my knowledge base. I decided to go back to the basics and I have found Angie's book to be a great tool for filling in the blanks. It serves as a wonderful foundation for the newbie and also does a great job of filling in the gaps for someone like me. The tutorials are clear, concise and very enjoyable. Angie brings a great bit of fun to the process (including some delightful footage of her dancing). Also, Angie draws on other subject matter experts in certain areas, to ensure effective communication of the topic (esp. the chapter covering expressions, which can be a daunting aspect of AE and often goes untouched by most users). Great tutorials, fun projects and thorough explanations. Well worth the purchase price.
Rating:
Summary: Great tutorials and great fun
Review: I've worked for a number of years as an Avid editor and have used After Effects for a variety of things, but have usually had a staff Graphics person to handle the heavy lifting. As a result, I found a had numerous holes in my knowledge base. I decided to go back to the basics and I have found Angie's book to be a great tool for filling in the blanks. It serves as a wonderful foundation for the newbie and also does a great job of filling in the gaps for someone like me. The tutorials are clear, concise and very enjoyable. Angie brings a great bit of fun to the process (including some delightful footage of her dancing). Also, Angie draws on other subject matter experts in certain areas, to ensure effective communication of the topic (esp. the chapter covering expressions, which can be a daunting aspect of AE and often goes untouched by most users). Great tutorials, fun projects and thorough explanations. Well worth the purchase price.
| 
