Making Photos Look Cool

R

rob@headland

Member
Hello,

I need some help.

Advice, actually. I'm in the middle of making a feature doc, shot on the HVX, and we plan to use a bunch of photographic archive material in the edit. Now I want to make these photos interesting - I'm thinking Fog of War or The Kid Stays in the Picture, but I don't want to spend thousands of Euro on hiring some fancy effects house to do it. And I know nothing about motion graphics, or whatever you call this work. Nothing.

What I need to know is if this type of work can be done in after effects, or even apple motion 2, and to what kind of standard, bearing in mind that this is a feature doc which will probably be shown cinematically.

Any hints/tips/advice or knowledge imparted will be gratefully received.

Thanks.
 
No way around this: Photoshop! You have to use a tool like the "magnetic lasso" to separate the subject from the background. You then have to use a "clone stamp" tool to go in and re-create the background area that your subject has moved away from. This of course gives you the freedom to blur the background if you wish which can further dramatize the piece. I'm not sure if AE has a lasso. Good Luck
 
After Effects doesn't have the lasso from Photoshop but it does has the Pen Tool for creating masks. Although I would recommend doing your image manipulation in Photoshop and your animating in After Effects.

After Effects is 100% capable of accomplishing the look of "Kid Stays in the Picture". Don't know about "Fog of War" - I forgot what that looked like.

As for standard, AE is resolution independent. Meaning, you can make your composition any dimension, frame rate, and aspect ratio you want.
 
I like to cut out the prineipal and zoom that slighly different thaqn it's background..wich I often blur a bit. This an instant sex (a layer of contrasty/saturated slightly burred same image) are the quickest and easiest ways to make still interesting.
 
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