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What up, beautiful people?
It is your
homegirl, Ms. Shameless,
back with another Tech Talk.
And this video is all
about special effects,
as they pertain to
my channel, my videos,
and not anyone else's channel
and nobody else's videos.
But for me, how do I add
text animation, graphics,
and smoke and fire
and glitterati realness?
And I'm-a break it down for you.
So there are three
things, and it's equipment,
programs and plug-ins.
Now, the first one that I
love to use is my fog machine
that I bought on Amazon.
I'll put all the links in
the description box below.
If you do click on any of these
links and make a purchase,
I will get a commission.
I'm hooking you up. You hooking
me up. It's all good, boo.
But yeah, I love
this fog machine.
It's great for Halloween videos,
anything that you want to
add a kind of eerie-ness to it.
You could also use
it in photo shoots.
Winning.
Especially if you
have a black background.
And I use it in
my Nefertiti video.
Yes.
Happy Halloween.
It's small, and it
comes with a remote,
and all you got
to do is step on it,
and I like to
place it by the camera,
or it could be
by me, depending on
what kind of effect you want.
But it's really nice,
especially when you use it
in front of a black backdrop
so you can really see the smoke.
Or you could use
a white backdrop.
That would be really cool,
very newborn smoke child,
you know what I'm saying?
I come from the
old-school thinking of,
try to do as much as
you can with what you have
in the physical sense,
so I like to use a fog machine.
I like to add the
actual props necessary for
a special effect.
But I'm not big on
green screens unless
I'm trying to go
for a cheesy look.
That's just me personally.
Now, the next one is graphics.
I'm going to be very honest.
I do not do the
graphics here on this channel
that you've been
seeing as of late.
I have two amazing
editors that I work with
at House of Shameless,
and they use After Effects,
which is a program.
For me, though, what I've
used in the past are plug-ins,
and plug-ins for Final Cut Pro.
Final Cut Pro is a pro
version of an amateur program,
and I know they're going to
come for me when I say that.
I say that because it was
an upgrade for me from iMovie.
It's very similar to iMovie,
and when I got to
a point with iMovie
that I wanted to keep pushing --
I couldn't do
certain things in iMovie --
I went to Final Cut Pro X.
You can buy plug-ins,
and I love to buy plug-ins
from Pixel Film Studios.
I found that they
are the most affordable.
There is other ones out
there, but they're affordable,
and they have great tutorials.
Let's get into my program
to show you how I use those.
So this is my
computer. Welcome to my home.
I cleaned up my room,
guys, before you came over.
As you can see, everything's
organized. [laughing]
If you're interested in
this desktop wallpaper,
read the description box,
because we're
doing a rewards program
so you can get points and
get free goodies like this.
So I'm going to
open Final Cut Pro,
and here we are.
Let's make this
bigger for y'all.
This is a layer of effects,
and that's basically a
video file that I bought
from Pixel Film Studios.
And it's really affordable.
It's like $24 or $29.
And it's cheaper when
you buy them in bundles.
But if you're using any footage,
you have to have
permission from the owner,
a license of some sort.
But yeah.
So on the desktop,
it came in like this.
You can hit space.
That's basically
what the MOV file is.
Oo-hoo. That's pretty.
So I would take this and
drag it onto my timeline.
And delete this.
And see this orange
line? It's just rendering.
So just kind of leave it alone.
You can also change
the rendering options
so it does this at the very end.
You are wondering,
where is the video file?
It's underneath.
So I just got to go to the blend
option and move it to screen.
And that will allow you to see
the beautiful
goddess underneath.
So there.
Super cool.
So that is a special effect.
And this video was
on my Instagram feed,
if you want to
check it out. Info box.
Now we have the Cinderella.
Now, this is my so-called wand,
so I want to kind
of make it magical.
So I hit -- there.
So I'm going to take some
glitterati, some of this stuff,
that, again, I bought
from Pixel Film Studios.
I'm going to drop it on.
And again, it's, quote-unquote,
a special effect,
but it's really
just an MOV file.
And I'm going to
go to the blend mode,
go to screen,
and now you can see.
But I want to do it
when I hit my wand.
There.
So I would move
this and put it here.
Cute, right?
And then you can
make it shorter,
because I just wanted little
moments of magical realness.
See?
And then I could
copy and paste that
so it happens every
time she hits her wand.
And then it was,
again, over here.
Hit. Hit.
Cool, right?
And then I could zoom in
and make that even shorter.
Hit. Hit.
[laughing]
So if you want to see what
that looks like fully done,
you can watch the video.
Now for some graphics of text.
Again, Final Cut
actually has a lot of effects
and transitions
for text, animation,
but, again, I found this
from Pixel Film Studios,
and it's very clean and sleek.
Bam.
So all you got to do
is change that here,
and it could be like --
oop --
shoes.
Nike.
And then I could put more text
here, but that's really tiny.
I can delete it.
Cool, right?
And then, again, when you
buy them, it has a tutorial.
The other option is B roll.
So, if you go out into
the wilderness and you film,
for example, a storm,
you can just layer things.
And layering is really --
for me, I love doing that.
I love layering videos
when I'm doing transformations,
when I like to
be super artistic.
But again, I shall
move this to screen,
and it just makes the
video that much more cool.
And you could do little things
with plug-ins in Final Cut,
so this is the transitions.
I think we had like an old TV.
Let's see TV.
Oh, yeah, you can even add that.
Other little
things that you can do
include slow motion.
So this video is slowed down.
You can also layer this
video on top of each other
and create a delay.
So to see that -- there we go.
Just lower the opacity.
Cool, right?
And we can disable that
to see what it looks like.
Wow.
Cool, right?
That concludes the tip of
the iceberg of special effects.
If you are more advanced, I
don't know why you're here,
but if you want to
get more advanced,
I would suggest that
you learn After Effects,
and there are a
bunch of tutorials online.
And the plug-ins
for After Effects --
I go to this
website, VideoHive.net.
I don't know how to
do things from scratch.
I leave that to Tyler and Leah.
They are awesome. You can
check out their channels.
Everyone's link
is in the info box.
But they go ham on this.
But again, that's just
the tip of the iceberg.
There is so much more.
You can delve
into this rabbit hole.
But this is just
a little sample.
And again, links
in description box.
And I hope you
found this helpful.
If you have any questions,
put them in the comments below.
And, you guys, let me
know what kind of videos
you want me to address.
This is also part of
a Tech Talk playlist,
and, again, info box.
I have so many videos.
So until next time,
remember to do you, boo.
Be shameless.
Be fierce.
Be a geek. Be a tech geek, okay?
You might think your iPad
doesn't fit, but it does.
Don't get discouraged.
So now you can adjust things.
So say my video starts here.
