Walk With Us: Special Effects

For this task we had to create a short video using low budget special effects suggested by Russell Evans. Some of the examples of special effects we can use is:

1. Greenscreen - we have already experimented with this technique in our Little Mix music video. This can be used to create big budget effects so that you can transfer one part of a movie shot onto another, whether you want to put your character into an exotic location or create two of them.
2. Ghosting - this is a technique which is simpler than green screen and lower tech, this process places one video clip on top of another on the editing timeline.
3. Duplicating an actor in the same place.
4. Moving objects - Creates a telekinesis effect, making objects fly across the room into your actors hand.
5. Forced Perspective - This effect is used for creating smaller or larger objects or people. The Hobbits in Lord of the Rings were all shot in a similar way so that actors could interact with the actual surroundings rather than using a green screen.
6. In camera effects - Using the manual effects on the camera to adjust different light conditions etc.
7. Walk backwards and reverse the footage - This creates the effect that the actor is walking forward and the surroundings such as traffic are moving backwards.
8. Music Promo Effects: slomo backgrounds - this is used to make performance videos more visually dynamic, the performers move at an increased speed against a moving background. The clip is then played at a slower rate to give the impression that the background is moving at a slower speed and the performer is moving at a normal rate.
9. Move slowly and play at faster speeds - this effect enables you to gain a wealth of interest in a frame where the background need enlivening. the actor appears to be moving at normal speed whereas the surroundings appear to be moving particularly fast.
10. Lighting Effects - Stylised lighting can create more atmosphere.

The low budget effects we will attempt to re-create are number 6, 7, 8 and 9.

HOW TO:
To do number 6 we had to switch the camera to manual and scroll through the various options on the LCD monitor. We used colour effects by adjusting the White Balance so the screen appeared warmer and the trees in the background were a much brighter green.

To do number 7 we filmed our actor walking backwards, we used long uncut shots to make the most of the real and so there was no CGI feel to it. We did number 8 and number 9 in a similar way, however these shots were much more easier as we only needed to film our actor walking at a slower rate and then a faster rate.

 We went to film our footage near a busy road so that the effects would be more effective. We filmed from three different perspectives so that we could build a finished product. The first shot we filmed was the actor walking backwards. The director stood on one side of the street and the actor on the other, the director then just followed the actor as they walked backwards up the street. We did this three times so that we could get a long shot, mid shot and a shot which shows the actor walking both towards and away from the camera. We did the same for the other two types of effects, except we changed the speeds we moved at. We had three different clips of our actor walking fast, and three more different clips of our actor walking slowly. 

 

  We then imported our clips into Final cut Pro and dragged them into the timeline. We started by editing the clip of our actor walking backwards, to reverse the shots we selected the clip, we went to Modify in the toolbar, Retime and then reverse Clip. We did this for all three clips, however our actor did look slightly unnatural walking forwards however the effect was very effective and created the desired effect. 

We did face problems editing the clips of our actor moving at a faster pace, and therefore cut it form the final product. To slow the shot down we had to go to Modify, Retime and then Slow, however we only had the options of slowing our clip by either 10, 25 or 50%, however 10% was much too slow for our clip and the effect didn't have the desired effect as our actor was moving much too slow. 

We edited the shots of our actor moving at a slower speed in a similar way, by going to Modify, Speed and Fast, we first sped it up by 8x as much however this was much too fast and switched to 4x as much, the effect worked successfully and had the desired effect. When editing my footage together I decided to put the shots to a backing track, as we had used in camera effects to look warm I decided to use the song "Weezer" by Pork and Beans, as the song is acoustic and has an indie element, and the colouring of our footage was typical of the indie genre.

By practicing easy effects like the above means I could possibly apply them to my final product to create certain effects and imply a dream like state or to make performance based videos more interesting and entertaining to watch. An example of this is Fightstars video "The English Way", which featured on the Gadget Show, this video uses the same effect as moving at a faster pace then reducing the speed, except the lead singer sings in double time in order to create a dream like effect when the video is slowed down in editing.  http://youtu.be/8mrMe5dLqEw.

The Pharcyde "DROP" is an example of another music video which uses one of these effects. The artists move and dance throughout a street in reverse and then in editing the shots are reversed, so that the artists are then moving forwards however their movements look unnatural and distorted to create a clever and fun video.