In the last issue, I introduced Adobe After Effects as a tool for editors. This time, we’ll work through our first exercise, which will help you understand the program’s basic functions and animation controls. After Effects is designed around a layer-based timeline (as opposed to the track-based timeline found in editing programs), which means that it treats each clip or piece of artwork as a separate object that exists in its own layer, with its own set of properties. This exercise will illustrate this point, as we take two still images — an airplane and some clouds — and animate them so that the airplane flies across the sky.