How is this done?

[Matthew Campagna]

They did one of 2 things:

1. They used a green screen and put the two together later

-or-

2. They used Photoshop to separate the two people in the foreground and enhanced the look by making a really nice spray. Then they zoomed out on them as a foreground as the also zoomed out on the back ground. The trick is to zoom out slower on the foreground compared to the background and have the final resting place of the images to be set and the end first and work backward for keyframe timing.
The second one might be the more probable of the two.

[Mark Suszko]

It is a single image brought into photoshop and cut apart into background and foreground layers, the layers are then animated on separate tracks to create the motion and sense of depth. One of the hard parts of the technique is that if you move the elements very much out of their original positions, you would reveal the “hole” in the background where the foreground element was cut out.

That hole needs to be covered over or painted over, disguised somehow, using the cloning tools in photoshop, or sometimes a new background layer is broguht in from elsewhere to replace the one with the hole.

In the case of this barbershop shot, the hole can be fixed just by adding more blur becasue you’re expecting blurring to happen from the hairspray anyhow.

WAnt to seea great movie that uses this tencnique thruout, rent “The Kid Stays In The Picture”, which is one of the films that first made a big splash using the technique. Plus it’s just a very well-told story.

[Gregory Lindsey]

Thank you both for the info. I’m interested in seeing that film and perhaps trying the effect. What program would one use for animating the layers, After Effects of Final Cut Pro?

[Matthew Campagna]

You’ll want After Effects.
But be warned, there is a large learning curve if you have never used the program or have little experience with key framing.
If you insist on doing it on your own and need help, I would suggest checking out Lynda.com.

[Gregory Lindsey]

Thats good to know. I would most likely have someone else create it who knows what they’re doing in that case.

[Matthew Campagna]

You could do it with Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, but this is dependent on your skills.
Depends on your budget, time frame and how much you wanna learn or experience.

[Mark Suszko]

You don’t need aftereffects to do this, you can do it in Final cut with keyframing, it’s easy. If you can click and drag, you can do this. Apple Motion can also handle this. Motion can be told to import the photoshop file as separate layers, and it will automatically put the layers on separate tracks, all aligned and ready to play with.

[Amir Abed]

everyone is right about how to do this effect but it can be done using just Motion and Final Cut