Testing out how the camera will track through the first scene in my film. Getting used to the camera settings in After-Effects was rather tricky at the start, especially trying to focus the point-of-interest in the foreground before panning out from the house. I have included a Gaussian blur to the foreground layer and the city layer. Thus, the camera tracks outwards from the house, the city comes into focus and the house layer blurs outwards, enabling the city to become the focal point and main source of perspective.
After rendering the camera sequence I imported the 26 second film into After Effects a second time and added an ellipse solid, which is feathered at the edges to add a sense of atmosphere and darkness to the mood. Trying to achieve a flickering light was particularly tricky as there was no opacity setting to fade away the brightness from the house, as the camera tracks out. So, I simply opted for a black solid layer and animated the opacity to make it appear like a flickering light.
