Newbie here : need some advise on editing a video

[Chris Evans]

I’m not sure I exactly understand what you’re trying to accomplish it. As I understand it, there’s a video with some people in it, then you pause the video, then one of the character’s faces flies away and ends up pasted on a silhouette?

Is that about right? It’s difficult to give an answer when I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish.

[Max Xavier]

Yes thats it. I am trying to make a short video from the source video and pictures. For example: how would you fill up each of those silhouette blank faces with a face from the source video ?
and then the short video should show how the faces flies/moves away onto the silhouette in whatever style. I am really struggling because I cannot even find an example video to show you.

[Chris Evans]

Alright, so If I understand you correctly, here’s what I would do.

I’d take a frame that I wanted to pause on and I’d export that frame (you can easily do that in After Effects, or you can just print screen it. I’d take that frame into photoshop and cut out the face. Then I’d take the footage, the cutout face, and silhouette into After Effects, clip the footage end to be where you want to pause it, put the cutout face on there, size it up to match perfectly with where it is in the frame. Then I’d animate in the silhouette (however you want to do that, animate position so it flies in, whatever). Then I’d move some time forward and put the face cutout over the head of the appropriate silhouette and position/rotate it so it looks correct, maybe put a mask it a little so it matches appropriate. Maybe put a feathered mask over the neck so it fades instead of having a sharp line. Then I’d tweak the animation so it looks nice as it plays. If you wanted the video to freeze right there instead of cutting away, you can duplicate your original footage, right click>time>freeze frame at the appropriate frame and put it underneath all your other stuff. If you’ve got masks, you probably need to animate the mask expansion as the face cutout moves.

If you don’t know how to do some of that stuff, just look up tutorials and stuff. It’s gonna be much easier to do in After Effects than Premiere.

If you wanted the face to still be moving, you’ll have to rotoscope it in After Effects, just google it if you don’t know what that is.

[Max Xavier]

Thank you Chris ! That sounds exactly like what I need to do.

I am still going through your post trying to understand how to put all of this together but in the meantime I would like to know if you could kindly share any example videos or tutorials on how to achieve this ?

[Chris Evans]

All those techniques are fairly basic for AE. I’d suggest just learning After Effects basics. The place I started is too old now (Video Copilot Basic Tutorials), just Google After Effects Basics Tutorials. There’s been several great suggestions here on the Creative Cow in other threads as well. Don’t try to use After Effects without learning the basics, it’s huge and it’s got a lot to it, it’s easy to get lost. Once you get how the basics work, it’s pretty easy to learn new techniques at that point. Sorry I don’t have more help. AE is all about using a bunch of little things to make something cool.