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How to Create Light Reflections of Firewalks on a Portion of the Face
Hi –
I have a clip of a fireworks scene and another clip of a couple who is looking up at it. I wanted to try to have some modest light reflections to show on their faces on some of the fireworks. What is the best way for me to achieve this artificial fireworks lights illuminating on their faces.
Thanks in advanced for your help.
Iz
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5 Replies
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This tutorial should help: https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/lighting.php
But if you’re looking at people’s faces, you’ll want to add a special reflection in their eyes too.
You’d put a copy of the fireworks footage over each eye, set the layer blending mode to screen, distort it to match the shape of the eye a bit, rotoscope the footage to fit inside it the eye, etc.
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Thanks for replying.
No, it doesn’t have to look photorealistic. I just need some sort of lights (red, white, blue) softly coming on and off on a portion of their faces when you hear the fireworks off screen.
Iz
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Also, I’ll add:
Depending on how close up the shot is to the face, it’s sometimes beneficial to use a luma matte so that an adjustment layer isn’t affecting all the pixels evenly but is affecting certain parts of the face more than others (the lighter parts). Which, depending on where the fireworks are in relation to the rest of the lighting, could be more realistic or less realistic. But primarily it makes things look not so perfect and even which can help sell realism. It’s worth looking into.
I do a lot of similar things for muzzle flashes and what not. Basically I use an adjustment layer with a mask and a relatively high amount of feather. And just have to look and think what all surfaces would be affected by the fireworks light. Probably more than just faces.
Hope that helps in some way! 🙂
Nathan Walters
Halo Union Productions
https://www.HaloUnion.com -
Thanks, the video was very informative. I learned a lot from it. I’ll let you know how it came out. Thanks again for your help.
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Thanks for your advice. I’ll be working on several medium and close-up shot clips. After I work on the light reflection from the fireworks, I decided to also use this technique on a couple clips where the light from the TV will be bouncing on and off the faces of two people who are watching it. Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know how it came out.
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