After Effects Look Creation

[Patrick O'Sullivan]

So I've got a commercial shoot next week that requires that I channel my Bruno Aveillan senses and make some not so visual entertaining shots more visually entertaining.

The agency wants a look with this sort of effect (not the grade but the mist/focus):

I just took a self portrait and had a go but I got nothing resembling the misty quality of these. All the blur ones did just that. Blur. go figure. Anyway I tried stretching things in different directions and softening things but I can't seem to nail the right combo.

a little google searching for the method used here and it seems like the consensus is diopters used on the day combined with long lenses. Now that would be great but I'm looking for a way to do this in post. Unless someone can point me in the right direction of a rental house in Australia that has diopters for Ultra primes and can get them to Perth by next Monday. I tried finding some Digi Diopters but no luck and now it is getting to late to test and feel 100% confident on the day.

I'm actually hoping I've just missed trying that special "blur/mist effect" combo in AE and someone here can point me in the right direction.

Thanks

 

[Matthew Scott]

Like your research suggests, this is def done in camera. I would experiment with an extra glass element in front of your lens (bottom of a coke bottle, piece of thick broken glass). I have got awesome results from doing this....it just takes some experimentation and imagination. Here is something I did, quite different, but the same principal > http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?79749-SCARLET-stills-grabs-from-commercial-shoot or more here at my blog: http://www.mattscottvisuals.com/blog/2012/6/20/destructive-creation.html

Sounds like a cool shoot man, can't wait to see what you come up with Remember, you can always enhance what you do later in post too All the best!!

Matt

 

[Eric Santiago]

Doing all that in post is killer on your computer.
It can be done with Gaussian blur distorted maybe with Trapcode Shine, some masking and even some tracking but will take eons to render.

 

[Shane Kelly]

Patrick,
You don't need diopters, although the spit diopters work really well. In this case , the crappier the glass, the better. The best results that I have had in getting this look has been from a cheapo magnifying glass that you place on the page and move down as you read. It distorts really nicely. something like this:
http://www.seeitbigger.com/Carson_Lighted_MagniBar_p/c-mr15.htm
I'd experiment with cheap magnifying glasses, it doesn't matter if they are plastic. Cut them in half and glue some kind of holder onto them. put them in front of a 50mm or longer and I think you'll get what you need.
Also, if you get a 1ft square piece of optical clear glass, (glaziers here call it starfire, I think ), then you can glue pieces of broken glass, eyeglass lenses etc onto that and shoot through it.

All the best,
Shane.

 

[Hurcan Yilmazer]

here is what i was able to do.

two adjastment layers with camera lens blur and directional blur on both of them one has lesser valiue. and the one with less value is on top and its mask is little higher than the other one (in after effects)

 

[Elsie N]

Is there no way to do this in Photoshop?

 

[Johnny Friday]

Having worked with guys that shoot a lot of commercials and music videos, I've seen so many interesting bags of tricks...Here's what also may work as suggested by other users...another (random) piece of glass held in front of the lens with carmex (lip protector) lightly smeared at bottom of glass...Then there is just holding a thick piece of glass at bottom of lens....basically experimentation. The one i liked a lot was using a sterno can lit just in front and below a long lens....

 

[Jan Balster]

What about a Tilt-Shift lens? The fall-off on the blur almost looks like it was done with a Tilt-Shift. Or maybe a combo of Tilt-Shift and the Coke bottle approach.

- Jan

 

[Matthew Ritenour]

One of the problems with doing it physically with a lens will be it's permanence. If you do it in post you can put it on the side or the top, etc. So if you make a physical kit to achieve this effect it might be best to make sure that it's mobile and it rotates to be placed on the top or side to achieve an effect tailored to that specific shot. Not sure if that's what you're going for but it would give you more options, although not as many as creating it in post.

 

[Les C.]

One possible option is to shoot your main subject on green screen, and in post production with compositing software, add the fog, change the lighting, etc..

This is a three part tutorial on creating 3d fog, where you have total control over where it goes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uha1jZ1AJJg&feature=g-user-u

 

[Eric Santiago]

One possible option is to shoot your main subject on green screen, and in post production with compositing software, add the fog, change the lighting, etc..

This is a three part tutorial on creating 3d fog, where you have total control over where it goes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uha1jZ1AJJg&feature=g-user-u

Thems a lotta NODES

I was going suggest other apps (like the Eyeon one in the link) like Smoke.

I guess Post is the only true answer to this?

 

[Les C.]

Thems a lotta NODES

Yes - can you imagine having to use layers instead?

Hopefully some day Adobe will the the light with nodes.

If you want to play in the big boy sandbox, you need nodes.

 

[Eric Santiago]

Yes - can you imagine having to use layers instead?

Hopefully some day Adobe will the the light with nodes.

If you want to play in the big boy sandbox, you need nodes.

Haha okay we are officially off topic
I beg to differ, but heck Ive been there from the original A|W Composer, Fusion and Shake so I get you
At this stage of my career I will stick with AE.

 

[Eric Santiago]

Just to add, I did a test in AE with an Adjustment Layer w/Trapcode Shine set to None in color then a Fast Blur.
Its close to the original but if you want the actual smoke to move then you will need to add Particles and use a Gaussian Blur.
Fast Blur is not strong enough to create that cloud effect using sub-pixel effects.

Another combo is:
Fractal
Trapcode Shine
Gaussian Blur

This one actually works best.

 

[Drew Baird]

I came up with this effect after a couple of minutes with AE.

STREAKS:


HAZE:


ORIGINAL:


For this effect I duplicated the source then added a directional blur. Blur until the streaks are long enough for the effect you want. Next I added a gaussian blur to soften the streaks. Stretch the layer so that you don't have any exposed edge pixels from the blur.

Next mask the blur layer so that the streaks and blur start where you like in the frame. Feather the mask edges until you are happy. I then added a brightness/contrast effect to bring out the streaks a little bit more. after that I changed the blending mode to "screen". Play with blending modes to find a look you like or ignore them completely. It still looks cool without changing the blending mode.

After that add an adjustment layer. Add a gaussian blur and blur to the desired amount. Mask the adjustment layer and feather the edges.

There you go.

I hope this helps, or is at least a step in the right direction.

 

[Eric Santiago]

Love them all Drew
Did you test on any R3Ds?
I only tested on an HD file lying around here and the speed was good.

 

[Drew Baird]

Thanks Eric! This was done with an R3D snapshot. It isn't very processor intensive to do it this way. I'm on a retinal MacBook Pro and I was adjusting the effects in real time without any render lag. The effect will also follow the movement of the footage since the streaks are based off of the original media.

 

[Eric Santiago]

Thanks Eric! This was done with an R3D snapshot. It isn't very processor intensive to do it this way. I'm on a retinal MacBook Pro and I was adjusting the effects in real time without any render lag. The effect will also follow the movement of the footage since the streaks are based off of the original media.

Thats the great part about Adjustment layers.
You can also add a random keyframe script on the mask so that the blur mask wont be so static like.

 

[Phil Bates]

To me it looks like a combination of radial blur, shine, fast blur and masks with track mattes using existing footage (no greenscreen) in After Effects. The trick is the order things get layered and nested. I don't see render times being too unfeasible.

Phil

 

[Eric Santiago]

To me it looks like a combination of radial blur, shine, fast blur and masks with track mattes using existing footage (no greenscreen) in After Effects. The trick is the order things get layered and nested. I don't see render times being too unfeasible.

Phil

I had it in my head that it would since I was thinking of Particles for the cloud.
I would like the cloud part to move somewhat if it was up to me.