Visual Content Effects Software Helps Homer Simpson Go Live

Technology has never been Homer Simpson’s strong suit.

Sure, for the majority of his career he’s worked as a controller in a nuclear power plant. While the amount of buttons, knobs and levers surrounding his iconic work station seem to be the height of technological advancement, Homer is more often sleeping among them than toggling them on and off. By and large, it’s a miracle that he hasn’t destroyed the place yet (except for the 25th Treehouse of Horrors episode, but we’ll let it slide since it was for Halloween).

While Lisa likely played the part of AV integrator, setting up the videoconferencing system for Homer to speak to his fans, it was the show’s father figure that spoke to fans live for the first time in the show’s history on Sunday. At the end of the show, titled “Simprovised,” Homer took calls from real viewers, while Dan Castellaneta, Homer’s voice actor, improvised answers live.

How was this possible? As reported by CNET, with the help of Adobe After Effects CC software. The creators of “The Simpsons” were able to get advanced access the new Adobe Character animator feature of the powerful software in order to make the live call-ins a reality. The feature syncs lip movements of the voice actor with the animated character by creating a layered character in Photoshop CC or Illustrator CC software, and then acting out character movements in front of a webcam. Facial expressions are instantly converted into animated form, and thus the animated Homer Simpson is able to react live to questions.

That’s a pretty extreme example of what Adobe’s software is capable of. For your business, the After Effects CC software can be used to add effects to video content and web content to make your company’s messaging more dynamic and high-tech. Content creation, management, and distribution has become a highly utilized aspect in marketing for many companies. Making sure that your content is engaging is a big part of that.

Hey, if it’s good enough for the longest-running animated program in American history, it’s probably good enough for your company’s video content.

Below: Watch the live segment from Sunday’s episode of “The Simpsons:”