[Edward Ballinger]

Thanks guys. You’ve more or less told me what I suspected. Bear in mind that I didn’t shoot this thing, I’m late to the game. It’s a shoe-string budget that has had two different DPs that shot in short spurts over the course of the last year. I am, in fact, the fall-back editor since the main guy dropped it to go make actual money on a location job overseas.
No, I don’t really do AE as a rule. I understand that it’s an art and a science but I’ll just have to do the best I can.

So the liquid need not move much, that’s a relief. Basically I can just motion track the syringe with the “magic potion” and blend a shot of the syringe over it. Sounds like a pain but doable.

Do you have a suggestion about the close ups of the syringe? Any ideas how to make the particles and bubbles in the tube when the plunger is first pulled back?

[Edward Ballinger]

Thanks, I think. Although your answer doesn’t give me much hope.

There are a few problems with the shot that I didn’t mention because I mainly just wanted some general tips on liquids and a direction to head in. Certainly I didn’t expect anyone to tell me how to do the shot step by step.

Here’s the extra little difficulty – the director wants “magic” drugs in the syringe. I guess it has to glow as well as flow with little sparkly things suspended in the solution. I figured I’d address the flow problem first and then tackle the magic part.
This may not be doable but I didn’t know. I will do some camera experiments with a syringe but re-shooting is out of the question, the job wrapped weeks ago.

Ed Ballinger
Punkmonkey Pictures
punkmonkeypictures.com