If your video editing software includes keyframing, you’re in luck. During the editing process of iSundae II, I have come to realize how useful this feature can be. Here’s a few effects that I’ve been using it for.
Throwing Objects
At one point in iSundae II, a character tosses a small paper packet out her front door. It is extremely difficult to show the packet going anywhere if you just throw it on camera. To fix this, I fired up Final Cut Express and built a matte around a shot of the packet. This isolated the packet, which I could then animate to the exact spot that I wanted it to land.
Animating Mattes
We shot a scene on blue screen with a character pulling out a map. Unfortunately, the map had lots of blue on it, so when I went to key the scene, the map disappeared. No problem. I duplicated the video clip, moved it up a layer, and then proceeded to animate a matte around the map (try saying that ten times fast).
I have also discovered that swords and blue screen do not mix. Guess what I’m doing to get the swords back!
Screen Savers
One of our characters has a little screen that he projects his visual aids onto. In one shot, we didn’t have anything to put on the screen, so I created a little logo in Photoshop, brought that into Final Cut, and did a little animated screen saver.
As you can see, keyframe animation can produce some pretty neat effects. They can be your best friend in some difficult movie effects situations.
Woah, you guys are high-tech! You’ve got to post your movie as soon as it’s done!! Gee, you must put a lot of money into this…(=
Klaraa H.
Hi, Klaraa! Glad you like the sound of our movie. We are planning on posting it when it is done.
Actually, our budget isn’t nearly as large as you might think. We try to keep things as inexpensive as possible, so we are always looking for creative ways to do things. Rebekah and Ruth are wizards with cardboard, and you can ask them what they think of my work, ’cause I’m not going to say anything in that regard… 😉
Jordan does very, very good work.
Yes, our budget is small, mainly because it has to come out of the pockets of three teenagers. (Plus any small gifts.) We have done some of our earlier movies on a zero dollar budget. (Although those movies aren’t near as good as the ones we do now.)
You certainly make the most of your money, though!
Filming on a small budget does encourage creativity, although I often do wish I had some more funds on hand. 🙂