Get Your Shit Together

I’ll admit it. I’m a voyeur: Every chance I get, I ogle other people’s After Effects project files.  

What I find just as fascinating as the keyframes and expressions that make the magic happen on the timeline are the folders and naming conventions that keep the magic from melting down in the Project panel. It’s like peering into the machinery of an artist’s brain.

In general, an unkept project is a sign of an unkept mind.

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Time to “Get Your Shit Together”

The folks at Justin McClure Creative decided to help us all have tidier minds by launching Get Your Shit Together, a website that offers clear advice for creating project folder structures, project naming conventions and After Effects project folder scripts.

The site also offers free downloads from Justin McClure Creative and other industry vets, including David Bennett of CMT, Jonathan Winbush of Winbush and Harry Frank from GrayMachine.com.

Whatever organizational paradigm you adopt, GYST is a great way to start a conversation with your team about being better organized and working more efficiently together.

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About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.

4 Comments

rohitiyer86yer

My near-OCD level need for project and folder organization can’t get enough of this.

Pure win.

Jake

I’ve officially adopted this system, so far so good. One question, why is it all caps? All my folders are shouting at me now.

Justin Cone

WHAT’S WRONG WITH SHOUTING?! IT MAKES ME FEEL POWERFUL!

Brent Huddleston

Great video and funny. Practices that everyone should live by every day, especially in the imperative approach. The part where you talk about naming the files and finding folders was hilarious because I have been through that as well as everyone who has ever used a computer. Relating it to the scene from Jurassic Park was spot on, and then sort of overreacted and definitely took things to a whole new level. Overall, great video.

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