After effects workshop four.

- The anchor point for a text layer is in the bottom left corner. 

- The 'pan behind' tool allows you to select the anchor point and move it. 

- You can change what the text says throughout time by using 'source text', this puts a sqaure on the timeline, you select areas of text and delete or type something else and move along the timeline. This same tehchnique can used for colour and the size of the text. 

- When you select something from the 'animate' menu it appears as part of the text properties.

- Choose a position by changing the value and then change the 'start' value, this changes the position of so much of the text or single letters. 

- There are also the advanced options which give further scope for animating the text. 

- When selecting 'based on' you can change wether it animates the whole word or the letter etc. 

- If you change the smoothness of the transition it staggers the movement rather than having flow. 

- When working with scale, each letter scales around its own anchor point.

- If you select 'anchor grouping' and 'word' it scales the whole word or each word seperately if you have more than one. 

- Change the start, finish and offset. Then add a keyframe, move the bar and add another keyframe. 

- If you change the units to index you can be more precise about the movement of the text. 

- You can add colour to the letters being scaled. Add > property > fill colour. 

- Create a path using the pen tool. (Make sure the layer is selected) Select the 'mask one' and it attaches type to it. Under path options add a keyframe for first margain, move the bar, change the value and add another keyframe.