How to do a face fade in effect?

[David Johnson]

If you’re talking about the shot where a guy lights a match that illuminates the frame, that doesn’t look like a post effect (other than one possible composite since it’s doubtful the real Satan is a SAG member, although I’ve known a few with very similar qualities). It’s hard to be sure without being able to frame through, but it seems more likely that was done with precise shooting, lighting and timing, although probably enhanced in post.

[Shawn Mall]

There must be a way to do it in AE though, correct? Im new to AE, so I dont know that much, but maybe some effect that darkens the area, then use keyframe to bring the darkness back, so the face could be shown?

[Michael Szalapski]

Doing it during shooting is going to look a lot better, but you can do what you describe in AE. You could use a levels, curves, brightness/contrast, or any other color correction recipe on an adjustment layer (masked so that it’s only over the area you want to change) and then keyframe the opacity of that adjustment layer. Or, if you want to add more detail, you could use something with the Gradient Wipe effect using the layer as the gradient so that the brighter areas pop out first…I dunno, could be fun. Or, possibly you could use a custom (animated) map layer to make it look more realistic.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

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[Shawn Mall]

Thank you, i’ll see what i can do. As I said, im still fairly new to AE, but i’ll let everyone know how it goes.

Thanks again.