Rain / water theme

[Jeremy Allen]

Hey Everybody..

I’m working on a making-of-music-video tv special. I’m doing the editing and graphics package for the show. This is the 3rd one I’ve worked on and usually there are certain elements in the video that I will incorporate into the look of the show. For instance, the first one had a lot of fire in the music video, so that one’s a no brainer. The next one was a period piece with 18th century clothes and props. So I used an old paper effect and some old illustrations of men and women wearing that style of clothing.

Now, this latest video has hardly any defining elements. It was mostly shot inside and the sets were fairly plain. The only consistent “element” in the video is the weather. It rained the whole entire day of shooting, and they even faked rain on windows for the video.

I’ll need to create a short intro, lower 3rds, some cool transitions and the credits for the show and I’m looking for any creative ideas for a rain/water treatment. I’ve seen a couple tutorials on how to make something look like it’s under water (Wave World/Caustics), but I don’t think that’s really what I’m going for. Honestly I don’t know exactly what I’m going for yet, and that’s why I’m turning to the brilliant COW minds to help me out.

Please feel free to share any ideas about how to use rain or water in general as a theme. And if possible, any links for that type of treatment would be much appreciated..

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8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.2
DualCore G5 2.0 GHZ, 2GB RAM, OSX 10.4.11

AE CS3

[Peter Litwinowicz]

You might try our Shade/Shape. If you can get the shape of the droplets/water, you can use Shade/Shape to reflect and refract. Look at the movies here: https://www.revisionfx.com/products/shade_shape/gallery/

In particular look at “Liquid Dancers” (the second movie) and the second to last (“Lens REflection”). Both effects were done simply by looking at the animated 2d mattes (one came from keying some footage, the other was made by hand).

By animating mattes or text in an appropriate way, you can get some really cool watery-looking stuff.

Just a thought.
Pete
RE:Vision Effects, inc.

[Paul Hennell]

This tutorial might prove handy – It’s different to the average rain shot you get, and you could mix in some ‘zooming down from above effect’ to get a kinda ‘following a rain drop’ thing going.

Is there anything else that stands out about the video you can incorporate as well? Common colours or sounds might help sell the link, or even just a single object seen briefly might give you some good ideas.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[adam taylor]

why not try come up with a look that relates not to the visuals in the video but to the lyrics in the song?

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Jeremy Allen]

Hey thanks for the ideas everybody.

@Pete – I’m trying to check out your link, but it seems to have a problem loading. Maybe I should try it later.

@Dave – We actually did get a chance to shoot some rain on the streets during the shooting. Since I was on camera and editing/graphics, I tried to think ahead and “shoot for graphics”. Some of it worked out ok, but I will still need some sort of nice text treatment, or overall theme to the whole thing. The umbrella thing is a good idea. I’m tying to think of other things that can convey rain or water, and you got me thinking 🙂

@Paul – Funny you should mention that tut. I watched the first 2 parts yesterday and will be watching part 3 shortly. It’s definitely a nice look if I end up with a literal interpretation of rain.

Also, the performance of the video is mostly the artist standing/sitting against a brick wall inside a living room. So I thought of using the brick wall as an element somehow, although I know that’s been done to death. However, when the artist is against the wall, you can see the shadows of rain running down the window across her face and the wall. I really liked the way it looked and thought about using that somehow. Like maybe the title of the show would be “projected” on the wall and you could see the shadows of the rain from the window. And maybe the lower 3rds would have that same kind of treatment.

@Adam – I like you’re approach, looking at it from the other side. The song is kinda slow, young break-up, heartbreak, crying, etc. So, inherently I think the rain kinda adds to that feeling. I’ll probably use muted/dark colors to convey that aspect of the song. I’ll read through the lyrics again to see if anything pops out.

Again, thanks to all for responding. I work at home so it’s really nice to bounce ideas around with other talented people.

Any other ideas or links to similar treatments/themes are still much appreciated..

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8core MacPro, 3.0 GHZ, 10GB RAM, OSX 10.5.2
DualCore G5 2.0 GHZ, 2GB RAM, OSX 10.4.11

AE CS3