FINAL SHOT OF MOVIE: Hit by a car. How to?

How good are you with After Effects? If you don't want to green screen or wire pull, you get to play with rotoscoping. Like ProfessorU said earlier, lock the camera down on a tripod and record two shots, the victim standing/walking whatever, and the car driving by, then rotoscope and blend them in AE. To simulate the wire pull (where the body folds over the hood on impact) you can use Filter>Distort>Mesh Warp to stretch the victim to the desired shape. Make sure the entire body is rotoscoped out during those frames, or you will also stretch the background. That is what I did in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAj54RvZgRM

However, that only covers the initial impact shot. If you want the body to roll over the car and flop on the ground behind, It is time for a gymnast, stuntman or dummy(living or prop:cheesy:) to jump in.
 
Back in the day (circa 1990), pre the at-home-digital-movie-studio I was whoring myself out as a pseudo-stunt man to get extra cash and trade IOUs for film school in NY. For this one flick I had to get hit and roll up and over the back of the car. A second shot would place the actor landing on the ground. You do this by hopping up with the car and rolling up the window pillar the rest is just objects in motion theory. Take one went well. Take two was a little sloppy but I caught awesome air. The director just had to have another take...that one - well let's just say I ended up sitting in the driver's lap with glass everywhere. Good thing it was the director's car. In the end Take two ended up in the movie and looked pretty cool. It may not be as easy as live action but thank got for the digital revolution in film making.
 
You could try to use camera movement to create the illusion of the car moving while hitting him. It might be more convincing if you move in the opposite direction of the supposed action.

i.e. if from a side view, the car is supposed to be driving toward the left of the screen, move the camera to the right quickly as the actor feigns getting hit. Add SFX later.

for the head-on shot, quickly zoom out as the actor gets hit.

Cheap effects with limited resources. Yay indie films!
 
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