Text titles like in tv shows, After Effects or another software?

Question

I was wondering how is possible prepare some professional grade titles and graphics for broadcasts media (like the ones that you see in actual tv shows).

For example when a person is presented with an animated text like:

James 43
Lawyer of This Corp LTD.

A rich graphic text with alpha transparency that animates and disappear after some seconds.

I'm pretty sure that After Effects is a software to build them. Doing it manually however will be difficult to handle on the long period and lead to errors and discrepancies so I wonder also if it's possible to create sequences with scripts, functions and configurable variables.

Example:

function show_my_custom_animation_text() { ... }

And trigger it at a specific timecode:

00:02:21 - show_my_custom_animation_text("James", "43", "Lawyer");
00:03:16 - show_my_custom_animation_text("Bob", "35", "Barman");
00:04:51 - show_my_custom_animation_text2("Eric", "Bob", "Martin", "Philip");
...

Adobe Flash with it's frames and actionscript functions can allow something similar.

In short:

• AE: It is possible to achieve professional grade titles with AE and maybe it's plugins ? Scripting and functions do exists? It's definitively AE raccomended to do this repetitive job?

• Software/Tools: What software do professionals use aside AE? Given that this results will be reviewed and sent to actual big tv broadcasting to be actually aired on tv I can also consider learning other programs.

• Workflow: Can you suggest a workflow for titling a show?

• Resources: If you have some articles or links useful to learn more on the topic it will be a nice bonus!

Answer 1

After Effects is professional software for creating motion graphics, and can do what you are asking. There are a plethora of plugins, scripts and presets available to make it even easier, but out of the box it is very powerful software.

AE can also be scripted using Adobe's Extendscript scripting API. Within compositions (the name for the sequences created in AE) individual elements can be controlled by expressions. Both Extendscript and expressions are javascript-based.

For titling a show the workflow would depend on the content. For say a regular show the best approach would be to create templates. Adobe Premiere works very well with After effects, so that templates can be re-purposed within Premiere - e.g. the text content of a lower third title can be changed for different people's names.