What it is for, and what it is not

After Effects is for making things move: titles, lower thirds, animated logos, explainer graphics, and the small polish a client notices without being able to name it.

It is not a video editor, and using it as one is the commonest beginner mistake. Cutting a twenty minute interview belongs in Premiere Pro or a similar editor, and the eight second animated title belongs here. The professional workflow uses both: edit there, build the graphics here, bring them back.

Understand the structure before touching anything. A project holds compositions, a composition holds layers, and a layer moves over time on a timeline. Almost everything you will do is changing a property of a layer as time passes.

The interface is intimidating because it shows everything at once, and you will use a small part of it for most work. Learn the timeline, the composition panel, the layer properties and the effects panel, and ignore the rest until you need it.

It renders slowly compared to an editor, because it is calculating rather than playing, and previewing takes time. That is normal and not a sign that your machine is wrong, although memory matters here more than almost anywhere else.

Start with a small finished piece rather than a tutorial you follow for three hours. An animated logo for a real client, done badly and then improved, teaches more than a perfect tutorial you never apply.