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Need Help With An Effect
I am doing a production for a client, and he has requested a special effect that I am unsure the best way to acheive it would be. Here is the scenario: We have live footage of a subject being interviewed about something that happened in the past. We also have another actor portraying what happened, while dressed in period costume, etc. What I want to do is somehow morph the two scenes together with some kind of white light effect that will seamlessly blend from one scene to the other. If any of you have ever watched the TV show Cold Case, they do something similar, switching from the present day actor to the actor from the past, but without the light. Does anyone have any ideas how to pull this off and make it look cool?
Thanks for any help you can provide! -
7 Replies
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i’m not familiar with cold case, but if all you’re looking for is a transition between interview and reinactment, you could try something as simple as a disolve, then add an adjustment layer over the top, add a glow effect and animate the glow amount over the disolve.
with some tweeking you can get some nice effects, you may find that animating other effects in the adjustment layer can help, like many of the blurs, or a subtle ‘shine’ effect.
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Hi, and thanks for the replies. Yes I do want the light.
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Hi , I looked at Aharon Rabinowitz’s tutorial. I don’t think that effect is the look the client is looking for. The light should gradually, but quickly engulf the whole screen, then lessen in the same way to reveal the new actor/scene. I know this is hard to describe… Thanks for your patience!
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How can it be gradual yet quick? If you want the effect to be longer than Aharon’s you can easily extend it. I’m also not familiar with Cold Case, so I don’t really know what the look you are going for is.
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Actually I did try it with my footage, but perhaps I am looking at the wrong tutorial. The one I tried was here: https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/Film_Flash/index.html
Sorry for any confusion… -
Maybe this is useful: the thing with any flash effect is tweaking the brightness (etc.) animation curve so it looks right. Gradual slope up to a rounded (or pointy?) peak, then gradual slop down. It often requires finessing to get the timing right.
It’s a rite of passage for a motion graphics artist. 🙂
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There are three things that sell an effect like this that take your scene beyond the merely stereotypical. Umm, maybe four. No, wait, five.
1. Build anticipation in your audience that something interesting is going to happen
2. Satisfy the expectation you have established.
3. Make the transition effect subtle but unmistakable (unless you are trying to fool your audience)
4. In addition to the costume, a photographic style or lighting effect helps to distinguish the eras form each other.
5. Break the fourth wall in some unexpected but rewarding way. For instance, could there be an artifact that appears in both eras? Perhaps it is a book on a desk or a statue in a corner of the room.bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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