A few people have asked how to insert a timecode or a counter in their math videos. This technique constitutes, like, 90% of my AfterEffects usage, so I put together a quick tutorial.

Projectile Motion Strobe Effect from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

1. Record video from a stationary source. Like a Flip cam on a tripod, for instance.

2. Trim the video to one shot.

3. Export that clip to an image sequence. 15 frames per second gets you pretty clean motion.

4. Load those images into a stack in Photoshop.

5. Mask off the basketballs. (It’s tough for me to explain this step without video.)

6. Import all these resources into Adobe AfterEffects.

7. Extend the masked basketball layers to the end of the composition. Otherwise they won’t hover in mid-air. They’ll just disappear after two frames.

8. Keyframe the brightness of each basketball layer to give yourself one frame of pure white at the start of each layer.

2013 Mar 18. Chris McCaffrey offers a less expensive method for creating the images (if not the video also).