Hello every single one of you humans.
This week's video is one that I've
gotten a few requests for and that is
how to create this time freeze type
parallax effect, specifically this one
from this Andreas Hem video. Take a look
at this clip. As you can see, when we move
the camera there's a foreground which
moves faster than the midground which
moves faster than the background. That's
the effect that we're trying to
replicate. And the way that we replicate
that effect in a still image is by
taking that still image and cutting
apart the foreground, midground,
background, however many layers you may
have, and spacing them out to create the
illusion of depth. Then, to complete the
effect, we'll just fill in the missing
pieces for each layer and add a virtual
camera motion. When you're shooting you
want to make sure that you have a very
defined and separated foreground,
midground, background and other layers
of depth in your clip. What I mean by
that is that this image will not work
for the effect, as the midground, which
is the ground, is attached to the
foreground, which is the person in frame.
So, we don't have a specific spot where
we can separate the foreground from the
midground. If you look at the image and
you can see the place where one layer
attaches to another, that clip will not
work. Now, if we were to move the camera
angle up a little bit then we would have
this shot, which does work because we
can't see the place where the person is
attached to the ground. Also, while you're
shooting you want to shoot clean plates
if possible. Now the way you shoot a
clean plate is by shooting your final
clip where you have your foreground
midground, background, all of your layers,
and then moving the foreground out of
the way. Then you take that shot where
you don't have the foreground in the
frame. Then, if possible, move the next
layer out of the way and just take a
photo of what's behind that. Then keep
doing that for as many layers as you can.
As you'll see when we start editing this,
having more clean plates can create a
more convincing effect as well as save
you a lot of time. Now that you've done
that, we finally get to move on to
editing. Start out by making your image
into a new composite shot and looking at
it to determine how many layers you'll
need to separate. Then duplicate your
image to create one layer in your
composite shot for each layer
in your image. As you can see, the example
clip that I'm using has three layers: a
foreground, midground, and background. So,
I'm going to duplicate the image twice.
We'll start out by separating the
foreground from the midground. I'm going
to do this by using a mask, just masking
around the edge of that layer to cut it
apart from the midground. After we've done
that, we need to switch to the layer
under the foreground and paint in what
is behind the foreground layer. The basic
process is to use something like the
clone stamp tool to cover up the
foreground layer. You can do this using
Photoshop if you have dynamic link, or by
pre-composing the mid-ground layer in
your editor. Now, this is where your clean
plates come in. If you shot a clean plate
without your foreground layer, then you
don't actually have to do this. You can
just substitute that and the foreground
is already gone. Essentially what
you're doing by painting out that
foreground layer is creating a fake
clean plate that goes behind the
foreground. Now, just repeat that process
for all the other layers in your clip-
mask out what's shown in one layer to
separate it from the shot and then cover
it up in the layer beneath that. Now we
are almost done and the final step is to
add that fake camera motion. Convert all
of your layers from 2d to 3d and then
add a camera to the composite shot. Now,
space out all of those layers, pushing
layers that are further away in the clip
further from that virtual camera. So what
you've done here is taken that space
between the different layers in your
location and mimicked that in your
composite shot. Finally let's create that
fake camera motion. The easy way to do
this is to keyframe the animation of the
camera to move and then add a camera
shake effect for a little bit more
realism. But if you have some extra time
on your hands and want a little bit more
realism, you can actually take the camera
motion from an actual clip and
essentially map that onto your virtual
shot. Start by getting a clip of you
moving the camera in the way that you
want it to move in the final shot. The
way that I'll do this is by taking a
piece of paper and drawing two points on
it, then taping it to the wall and just
doing that camera motion. Having the dots
on the piece of paper in your shot
gives you something to track in editing
so that you can take that camera motion
and add it
to the camera in your scene. Take that
clip, add it to your composite shot, and
stabilize it using those two points. Now,
if you parent your virtual camera layer
to that clip then you'll see that that
virtual camera actually moves in the
same way that your real camera did.
Anyway, that is all for this week and if
you did enjoy this video feel free to
show your support by leaving a like or even
subscribing to my channel I upload new
filmmaking and video editing tutorials
every single Saturday. Keep creating and
I'll see you in the next one.
