Twelve Days of Christmas – After Effects Template

Twelve Days of Christmas – Overview

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me – an editable festive greetings video to send to everyone! Get festive using a 12 day calendar with a template which gives you a dozen, beautifully crafted, paper cutout Christmas box displays.

Whether it’s corporate or personal, sing along to the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ music whilst you place your special holiday messages or images into the illustrated 3D cubes.

Update

We’ve now included a Modular version of this template which allows you to more easily change the timings between the movement of each box. Previously you would need to render the whole sequence and re-time it by editing the rendered video in a video editing program. Please see below for more details on the included Modular version.

Features

• 12 carefully crafted Christmas box placeholders
• Place images or video instead of text
• Use your own colors, backgrounds and fonts
• No plugins required
• High definition 1080p

There are two versions included

Modular – camera movement to each ‘day’ is not adjustable but you can adjust the length of time spent on each box, making this a better choice when using video footage. The sequence moves through the 12 days with no back-tracking to previous days, so this will output a more fluid and succinct sequence. The Modular version is what was used to render the preview video above.

Full Sequence – there’s no control over camera movement or duration of each box. The sequence goes through each ‘day’ and then backtracks through previous boxes, as per the 12 Days of Christmas carol. To see how the Full Sequence renders please watch this YouTube video.

Regarding Editing

Please note that only the box graphics are editable. The size of the boxes is not editable, nor are the white shapes inside each box.

Camera movement is set with keyframes but, if using the Modular version, you can adjust the timings for each movement – ie. at what point in time the camera moves between boxes. This is useful when using video footage and adjusting each camera move to match your music track.

Adjusting the Timings – Modular version only

We’ve made adjusting the duration between two boxes as simple as possible, bearing in mind the complexity of the camerawork behind the scenes.

To allow more resting time on a particular box you must move the in-points of the subsequent boxes, which are to follow, forward along the timeline.

This is achieved in the Main Comp where you’ll find we have colored each set of double-layers (each box and its camera). You need to make sure to move BOTH LAYERS (of the same color) simultaneously, to have a box appear later in the sequence. We’ve added markers to help you align them.

Font Use

The fonts used in the preview video are :

Elsie and QuickSand.

Not Included

Audio is not included with the project but you can download the exact same music for FREE from the YouTube Audio Library! Search 12 Days of Christmas (Instrumental) by Jingle Punks.