This video is brought to you
by Storyblocks Video
Hey guys, this is Yannick for cinecom.net
and welcome to another Copy Cat Friday,
a series where we recreate effects from
famous movies and music videos.
And today we are recreating effects
from Billy Eilish ‘Lovely’.
[Thunder and rain]
[Music]
[Cinecom's intro music]
Like I already said today,
we are doing some cool effects from one
of our favorite artists from this moment,
Billie Eilish.
The effects that we are recreating
are from an older music video of her,
named Lovely.
In this music video you can
see her standing in a glass box
and on a certain moment water
will flow over this glass,
and then all the water will freeze.
Well, believe it or not, we are going
to show you how to recreate it all.
Even the glass box.
And no, we aren't going
to build it for real.
We are using After Effects for it.
And do you know who also
uses a lot of After Effects?
Storyblocks video.
They have a wide range of After
Effects templates with stunning effects,
like logo reveals, transitions,
slide shows and so much more.
But that's not all, they also have a stock
video library that keeps expanding.
For one single price per year, you
can download unlimited assets.
And If you want, you can
start downloading right away,
click on the first link
in the description below.
[Action music]
Okay, now let's start
with the first effect,
which is the fake glass box.
As you saw in the cool montage,
we build a platform
just like in the music video.
You don't really need this for the effect.
But because we are going to track our
camera movement in post production,
We need some objects to
create depth and structure.
And this is something you
also need to keep in mind.
Provide some objects in
the space you are filming,
this will help After Effects to
understand your camera movement.
Okay, now that the set is ready
it's time to make your shot.
You can make whatever shot you want,
but we recommend to have
a somewhat big movement in it.
This big movement will give After Effects
more information on the perspective.
Okay now let's go to After Effects.
Load your shot into a new composition
and let's start with the camera tracking.
Go to the right side of the After
Effects and search for the tracker panel.
If you can't find it, go up to
the menu on top and to Window.
Now search for the tracker between
the options and select it.
Now you can start the tracking
by clicking on the ‘track camera’ button.
Let After Effects do it's thing.
It will Depend on the camera movement
you made how long the tracking will take.
Once done, you'll get these
colorful points on your shot.
Try to search for a point
on the ground of your box
or wherever you want
your glass box to stand on.
We are going to select
the corner of our platform.
You can select them
by just clicking on them.
Once you have selected
the one you want,
right click on them and select
‘create camera’ and ‘null object’.
Okay, now that we have the tracking
it's time for the fake glass walls.
As a picture of glass wall
is quite specific,
the chance of finding it
as a stock image will be quite small.
So I decided to make it
myself in Photoshop.
Quickly explained, I just painted
some dirt on the sides of the canvas
with specific brushes.
If you want you can download
the walls that I made.
Just check out the download link
in the description below.
Now that we have the walls,
it's time to place them
inside the 3D space.
Let's start with the front wall.
The first thing you need to do is make
the wall a 3D layer by checking this box.
To place the wall on the right spot
I'm going to use the parameters
of the null object.
So select the null object and
open up the properties.
here you can select the transform
property and copy it.
Select your wall and paste
the transform property to it.
This will place the wall on the null object
but also make it small and transparent.
So the first thing you can do
is set the opacity to 100%.
Next you can start to scale
the wall layer to the wanted size.
Then with the x, y, z levers you can
slightly move and rotate the wall
so it matches with the scene.
For the other walls you can
just copy the first one
and again move it around with the levers.
And I say the levers, because these
will give you the most control
of moving the layers
throughout your 3D space.
As a final touch you could
add some reflections in there.
A simple way to do this is by
taking a photo from the area
opposite to the box.
Before importing this photo
into your composition,
you can duplicate a glass panel.
Under this duplicate, place the photo.
Now on the duplicate, we're gonna
add the effect ‘fill',
because we are going to
use the layer as a matte.
But the layer is transparent,
so we are going to check
all masks for this effect.
Then double click on
the rectangle mask tool
and the layer is filled with red.
Now change the track matte
to alpha matte for the photo,
which we’ll use the duplicate as
a mask instead of just being red.
Then simply animate
the position of your photo
into the opposite direction
of your camera movement.
You could also change the
blending mode to ‘add’
and decrease the opacity
to what you find natural.
The other walls work exactly the same.
If you have done this all correctly,
you'll now have a cool fake
glass box around your actor.
[Music]
-Good job, Yannick you're doing
a great job so far.
In the intro guys, you saw
that we also worked with real water
and we actually tried making the water
effect inside After Effects as well,
but we find out it's that it took
many steps to make it look realistic.
So we asked ourselves the question:
isn't it maybe easier to do it practically?
And yes, it is.
This is also a tip that I want
to give to you, guys.
Always ask yourself,
‘can we do it practical’,
which is always going to look
more realistic and better.
Another example is where
we once did a Superman lift off.
You know where we had
some sand shooting up in the air,
We could do that inside After Effects,
but throwing real sand in the air
is of course much easier to do
and it looks at ton better as well.
So that's also what we did right here.
We didn't recreated that
entire glass box, of course,
because that is gonna
be really expensive.
So we just purchased two very
simple plastic panels, as you can see,
and we would throw water over there.
So Yannick would stand here in the middle
and we'll have the camera over there
and then it seems like Yannick
is standing within a glass box.
Now it was important that the water
would flow over this panel evenly.
So what we did was attach a fire hose
to this plastic tube here on top,
we drilled some holes in there
and that way the water will flow
easily over this panel.
We also set it up a little bit curved and
that way the water will stick better
through that plastic panel.
And then the front panel
which works exactly the same,
only here I had to pour
water through a bucket.
Standing on a ladder because we only
have one fire hose here in the studio.
In order to make the water
flow evenly here as well,
I kind of just taped a piece
of tape here on top,
and that way the water will be guided
more towards the side as well.
And that's basically it, also here
we kind of have this panel
a little bit curved so that the water
will stick better to the glass
and that's about it, guys.
Okay, 2 down, 1 to go.
So stick with me.
For this effect, we are
going to film frontal.
Again you can do whatever
camera movement you want.
We are slightly going to move
forward, closer to the actor.
Also, shoot this in the same
scene as the first shot.
Your actor will still be sitting
in that glass box
and it would be weird if that changes.
After you got the shot,
go back to After Effects
and load it into a new composition.
Again start with tracking
of the camera movement.
And repeat all the steps from before.
So when the tracking is done
create a camera and a null object.
You can again place all
your walls in the 3D space.
And now you have the same scene
as before but from a frontal view.
When you have got all this
it's time to create the freeze Effect.
First start with searching for
a stock image of a frost texture.
You can look on the internet for it,
or if you want to use it commercially,
use stock websites like
Storyblocks images.
If you have found the texture
that you want,
load it into After Effects and
place it into the composition
above every other layer.
Now make the frost texture a 3D layer,
and for the position
we are going to use the same transform
parameters as the wall it needs to be on.
So open up the properties
of the front wall,
select the transform property and copy it.
Then select the frost texture
and paste the property to it.
This will already put the texture
on the same place as the glass.
After this adjust the scale if needed.
Now it's time to make the frost move
and come in on both sides of the glass.
We are going to do this
with a track matte.
So to make this work we
are going to need a shape
to use as the track matte.
From the menu above select
‘layer’, ‘new’ and create a solid.
Again, use the transform
properties of the wall
to place the solid into the 3D space.
Next we are masking out
a shape for the track matte.
Go to the toolbar on top
and select the Pen tool.
In the composition panel you can
now start creating a mask.
For my track matte, I’m
going to create a rectangle
but on the right side I’m
giving it some random shapes.
This I'm doing so the frost
will appear more natural.
Next let's animate the
Mask you just created.
Start by moving it to the left so
it won't cover your glass wall.
Now enable the animation
for the mask path
and go further in time and let the
mask move to the right over the glass.
I'm going to stop in the middle,
as I'm going to let the frost
come in from both sides.
Another thing I'm doing is
animating the random side
to being even more random
between the first two keyframes,
as frost can be unpredictable.
After you are done animating the shape,
let's turn on the track matte
to see how it looks.
For the track matte option
you can select Alpha Matte.
Of course make sure that the
shape layer is above the frost layer,
otherwise you can't track matte anything.
Also, if you can't see
the track matte option,
simply go to the left bottom corner
of your After Effects panel
and enable the transfer controls pane.
Now you should be able
to see the blending modes
and the track matte option.
Okay, now you already have some
frost coming in from the left side.
But the edge of the frost is quite
hard and not what we want.
So first let's feather the mask
a great bunch.
But this is not enough.
So, go to the effects and presets library
and search for the ‘roughen edges’ effect.
Drag that to the solid and
from the effects control panel
you can now start changing the settings
till you find something you like.
I mostly played around with the
complexity, stretch width or height
and the edge sharpness.
Also if you have something you like,
you can also add more
feather to you mask.
This will enhance the roughen
edges even more.
Now we have a cool
animation for one side,
for the other side you can
do exactly the same.
To make it yourself easy,
select the solid and the
frost layer and duplicate them.
You can do this by simply
pressing control+D.
Delete the mask from the
solid and create a new one.
Animate it so it goes from
the right to the left and voila!
you have two frost sides.
But it's not finished yet,
first add the last details.
The first thing to do is change
the blending mode.
Here you can go for ‘add’, just like us.
We are also going to decrease the opacity
as the frost is a little bit to much.
The last thing we are now
adding is some fog
and this is done super easy.
Just select the solid we created
for the track matte and duplicate it.
Again press control+D.
Now take this duplicate and
place it under all the frost layers.
With the new solid still selected,
head over to the menu on top
and select ‘layer’ and then ‘solid settings’.
Here you can change the color of the solid.
We went for something blueish
to make it colder.
Once done click on OK.
Now go to your timeline and change
the opacity to around 30%.
For the last step you can
open up the mask properties,
here you can decrease the feather a
bunch and increase the mask expansion.
Also don't forget to change
the blending mode to screen.
Wow, that was a lot!
But all worth it for this
very cool effect!
And that was it for today guys,
Thank you so much for watching
and if you liked it, definitely press
that bell for future Copy Cats.
Thank you storyblocks for the support
and, like always:
Stay Creative!
