• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Lighting Effect Filters

  Posted by Cephus on October 10, 2005 at 7:40 pm

  Does anyone know of a filter set/plug-in besides Boris that can create a spotlight effect. I’m shooting on green screen, keying it out to black, and I’m wanting to add a spotlight on the subject. Unfortunately I don’t have Boris Continuum Complete in my budget right now. Any suggestions?

  Behold My Electronic Signature

  Chris Poisson replied 20 years, 10 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Bouncing Account needs new email address

  October 10, 2005 at 8:26 pm

  If you just want a “bright round circle of light” to move around the screen (causing what’s within its area to be bright and what’s around it to be dim:

  Just duplicate the SAME video on two tracks (in sync) and add an “Iris” (circle, add feather edge) video filter(s) to the UPPER track.
  Move it around in the Motion tabs (Key-framed) and that will be the “spot” area.
  On the LOWER track, use then 3-Way Color Corrector Filter (or similar) to lower the White and Mid levels on the clip (that will be the “DARK around the Spot” area.)

  There are lots of subtile ways to improve this effect, but this will get you started.

  (I’d create the “Green-screen over Black” effect FIRST and output that by itself as a Self-contained Quicktime Movie.
  Then bring that movie back into FCP and use it as the “Base” video to the 2-layers of effects.)
• 

  Cephus

  October 10, 2005 at 8:31 pm

  Thanks for the suggestion. I am kind of looking for that beam of light that serves as the source of the spotlight, but my client isn’t expecting it. I will definitely give this a go. Thank you much for the advice/technique.

  Behold My Electronic Signature
• 

  Walter Biscardi

  October 10, 2005 at 8:42 pm

  You can create a simple “cone of white” on top of the effect Matte described and just give it a lot of transparancy to give it the appearance of a light beam causing the spotlighted area.

  You could just create a White matte and then use one of the Garbage Matte tools to cut a cone shape. Add a lot of feather or blur to the cone to make it soft and turn down the opacity to around 15% or less. Move it around to follow the spotlight.

  Walter Biscardi, Jr.
  Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
  https://www.biscardicreative.com

  Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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  Chris Poisson

  October 11, 2005 at 2:30 pm

  Cephus,

  There’s a pretty good tutorial in Kevin Monihan’s book which is similar to what Walt described.

  There are a couple of plugins which do a volumetric light in After Effects, one is in Prime, http://www.digitaltrove.com, the other is called Lux at trapcode.com

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