Projector compositing effect

[Tabitha Moore]

Hmm, thanks, but the thing is:

We shot the projector footage (so at least I have that to work with).
We weren’t allowed to use a smoke machine in the projection room thus we have no intense beam of light to work with. Hence I’m trying to re-create this in After Effects, as I’m pretty sure the guys that did this Andrew Marr stuff did that effect in post too.

[Steve Roberts]

There’s always Trapcode’s Shine plugin …

(Steve ducks)

[Darby Edelen]

[Steve Roberts] “There’s always Trapcode’s Shine plugin …

(Steve ducks)”

I’m going to one up you Steve.

“There’s always CC Radial Fast Blur!”

(Darby runs out of the room)

…

(Darby comes back unapologetically)

But seriously, if you composite a copy of the projector footage on top of itself, apply CC Radial Fast Blur, put the center at the center of the projector’s lens and set this layer to the Screen blend mode I think you’re half way to a passable effect.

You may need to apply a Levels effect before the CC Radial Fast Blur in order to crush the darks so that only the bright spot of the projector lens becomes ‘volumetric.’

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

I’ll also mention that once you have the ‘beam’ to your liking there’s no need to use Masks to constrain the video footage you lay over it, since you can duplicate the beam footage and use it as a Luma Track Matte. I would set the video footage layer’s blend mode to something like Multiply as well.

I love blend modes 😉

Darby Edelen