ADDING A FLASH OF WHITE

[DVX100Shooter]

How can I add a flash of white to use as a transition similiar to a camera flash? Is there anything I can do with FCP achieve this?

I have a clip on V1 and I wanted to use a "flash" transition to a clip on V2 but couldn't figure out how to do it. Somebody told me to use the Brightness and Contrast filter and set it at 100 percent so it overexposes the clip but when I tried to do it a prompt came up saying that wasn't allowed!

[Jive]

Very basically, you should simply be able to keyframe the brightness/contrast to ramp up from no adjustments to max levels (or whatever it takes to get to white). You would do this at the end of one clip, and reverse the settings at the beginning of the second clip (doesn't matter if it's on the same track or not).

However, using only brightness and contrast doesn't really accomplish what I would have in mind for "camera flash", or what is often referred as a "film gate" effect, as it simulates the effect of a camera's gate staying open for a prolonged period of time.

I did a bunch of trials a few years back because I wanted to find the best combination of filters in FCP to get a good looking film gate effect.
Below is what I finished with. I can't promise all of the effects will work as advertised as I did this in FCP 1.25 (and haven't needed it since). Good luck!

Filters:
A. Gamma Correction
1. Settings: 1--> 0.01
B.Levels
1. Input: 50 --> (00;04 later) same --> (00;08 later) 50
2. Input Tolerance: 100 --> (00;04 later) 29 --> (00;08 later) 4
3. Gamma: 1 --> (00;04 later) same --> (00;08 later) 3.27

Take this as a starting point. Also, for added effect, add a duplicate layer of video on top of your video, gaussian blur is real nice, and drop it's opacity to around 30 (just a guess). Or you could try experimenting with just blurring the actual video layer (but only when it's good and overexposed). I left out the blurring on my trials because I was then using a 400mhz G4 and I would have never finished rendering!

[bgundu]

You can also use the "Dip to color" Transition. Keep the duration of the transition at only a few frames.

[dashwood]

The key to a real film flash is that overexposure looks different than just dissolving to white.
When I'm going for the flash frame look in post, I use the 3-way colour corrector.
First, select the outgoing clip, add the 3-way CC, and then put the pointer on the position you would like to start the flash. Hit "return" and click on the 3-way tab. Now hit the keyframe button to make a keyframe and re-position the pointer to the last frame of the clip. Now just turn up the whites and mids all the way, and then increase the blacks until the screen is completely white. You may want to add a Broadcast Safe plugin afterwords to clip your white levels back down a bit. Do the same process for the incoming clip, only reverse the keyframe positions. I usually make the space between the keyframes longer on the incoming side - this looks more natural.
Once you have done the custom flash once, just save the incoming and outgoing effects to your bin and then you can easily reapply to other transitions.


Now, if you are interested, I also know of a great in-camera technique to get an incoming flash frame on most video cameras.
This only works well if your scene is outdoors or lit brightly - maybe around ƒ5.6 - 8.
Turn on auto-iris, hit record, now cycle through the shutter speeds. At the moment you come around from your fastest shutter speed (image will be dark) to the slowest, the image will go way overexposed to white and then the auto-iris will quickly snap it back to the correct exposure. On the DVX and HDW-F900 it looks quite convincing. ;D

[Guest]

I did something similar to what (I think though I'm not entirely sure) you are describing. Just take two frames of whilte (I'm not on FCP at the moment so I can't explain where I got the white from, although I think it's just in the effects tab near slug, or perhaps was just slug that I changed from black to white) and put it between the two clips.

Works well.....it adds a quick flash of white.

[Guest]

For a white flash in a linear edit suite we set up the edit to cut to a full white background on the switcher, then have the editor trigger a dissolve to the next video source... I'd usually set it at 8 or 10 frames. It's a cut in but it still looks good. I just tried it in FCP with dissolves in and out and it looks better:

1. Go into photoshop (or whatever you have) and create a JPEG file of just a pure white frame -- 720x480.

2. Import file into FCP

3. Open the file in the viewer and you'll be able to set in and out points. Make it 20 frames.

4. Insert the white clip in between your clips.

5. Play with the timing and transitions in and out. I tried a 4 frame dissolve in, 4 white frames still, then 8 frame dissolve out. Looks fine.

cheers
keith

[Guest]

forgot to say that you can also use that method to do the "sports replay" style of transition... where you do a quick "flash" of a graphic page (moving or still)

[kai]

I do it in after effects by animating "levels". Just like in photoshop when you adjust levels... you keyframe animate the white level from no change, to all the way left where it meets the black point (creating a white flash). This way actually blows out the footage in a gradual ramp up, instead of just fading a white layer in on top of it...

That, or you can use the opticals plugin included with the magic bullet suite.

[kylelewis1]

The key to a real film flash is that overexposure looks different than just dissolving to white.
When I'm going for the flash frame look in post, I use the 3-way colour corrector.
First, select the outgoing clip, add the 3-way CC, and then put the pointer on the position you would like to start the flash. Hit "return" and click on the 3-way tab. Now hit the keyframe button to make a keyframe and re-position the pointer to the last frame of the clip. Now just turn up the whites and mids all the way, and then increase the blacks until the screen is completely white. You may want to add a Broadcast Safe plugin afterwords to clip your white levels back down a bit. Do the same process for the incoming clip, only reverse the keyframe positions. I usually make the space between the keyframes longer on the incoming side - this looks more natural.
Once you have done the custom flash once, just save the incoming and outgoing effects to your bin and then you can easily reapply to other transitions.


Now, if you are interested, I also know of a great in-camera technique to get an incoming flash frame on most video cameras.
This only works well if your scene is outdoors or lit brightly - maybe around ƒ5.6 - 8.
Turn on auto-iris, hit record, now cycle through the shutter speeds. At the moment you come around from your fastest shutter speed (image will be dark) to the slowest, the image will go way overexposed to white and then the auto-iris will quickly snap it back to the correct exposure. On the DVX and HDW-F900 it looks quite convincing. ;D

I just used this and it worked GREAT!

[moebius]

Here's a free plug-in that does just that:
http://www.buena.com/ee/cameraflash.shtml

[ZaniacMedia]

G-Film Flash is a cool plugin.

Here's a simple way to get a decent result right inside FCP. Create a white color matte in FCP (see the drop down menu at the bottom of your Canvas window - takes about 5 seconds), put it on another video track on top of the incoming clip. I find two frames to be enough, more if you like. Apply a cross dissolve to it. Boom, instant white flash.