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Hole in water surface?
There is a saying in the public workplace that if you stick your fist in a bucket of water and pull it out, the hole that remains is how much you will be missed when you are gone. I would like to create the following effect. The video would have a person putting his fist into a bucket of water then immediately removing it with a space (hole) left in the surface of the water. I want to use this for part of a video at an upcoming retirement party to demonstrate that contrary to the saying, this particular person will be missed.
Any suggestions on how to achieve the effect?
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2 Replies
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Without resorting to complex 3D apps or liquid simulations, I think the most simple solution would be to composite the shot of the person’s hand with a matching “hole”, filmed in-camera.
If you’re shooting this yourself, try locking the camera off, film the person sticking their hand in the bucket, then don’t move the camera and try using a power-drill with a kitchen beater or similar to create a whirlpool in the bucket for your “hole”. However you create the hole in your water, I really think that doing it “for real” and videoing it will give you the best results. Maybe you can use glass, or plastic bags, or compressed air, or some other trickery to generate your hole- but it will probably look much better than anything you can come up with in a comparable time on a computer.
Then in After Effects it becomes a compositing exercise to matte the different parts of your actor and the background plate together to get your look.
I’m really just thinking out loud here,
-Chris Zwar
Motion Graphics Designer
Will animate for food -
How about …
1. get a bucket.
2. make a tube that your arm and fist will fit into. Cover the ends. Cover it in wax paper or parchment paper.
3. place the tube securely in the center of the bucket, in as deep as your fist will go.
4. fill the bucket with something that will harden. Cement? It should fill around the tube.
5. When the stuff is hard, remove the tube. You should have a fist-sized hole in the hard-stuff-filled bucket. Maybe the hard stuff should be painted black?
6. fill the hole with water, so it overfills the hole and covers the hard stuff with about and inch of water …?
7. when shooting, plunge your fist in the hole (not too fast), letting the water gush up around it, hopefully not draining back into the hole. 🙂I’ve never tried this, and I see the possibility of damaging your fist if you miss the hole. Maybe if the hard stuff isn’t that hard, you could save your fist. Attempt at your own risk. Your mileage may vary.
Steve
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