Getting hit by a car

Roadkill475

Roadkill475

Active member
Hey everyone. I know that it is probably the most common effect but I just had to give it a go....Filmed yesterday afternoon...The intro is somewhat long but I was trying to convice people that it was going to be a longboard video but was cut short because my friend and I were struck down....Put it together last night so it's not perfect but I thought I'd show you guys...Comments and criticism are appreciated! Have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hH49VXZ-j4

:dankk2:
 
Very nice. Intro was a bit long as you noted. I would boost the audio on the actual hit noise. But that could be from YouTube compression. But visually it was excellent.

-Kevin
 
Yeah just did some roto' in After Effects....Haven't really used photoshop too much...Thanks a lot for the feedback....Glad you enjoyed it....
 
Hey Jeff, I’m glad to see some people are interested in figuring out how to achieve this effect. I searched this forum to see if anyone had previously asked this question and I couldn’t seem to find any posts relating to this so I think it will be useful to others if I explain how I went about this effect.

The effect is actually quite simple to achieve.
Filming it:
What you want to do first is make sure that your camera is stationery at all times while filming this, there should be minimal movements because it may mess up the layers when masking later on in AE. What we did is just have the person that is going to be hit by the car walk out into the road (No car involved yet). Once he reached the point where he was going to be hit I had him do the motion as if he was going to be hit. And the same goes for my scene where the bus hits me. Afterwards, we got a shot of the car speeding past at a faster speed than some of the other cars that passed by. By making the car hitting the character go faster it will make the hit seem a bit more realistic and with less frames of the car in motion makes the hit look more intense. So the same also went for the bus, we actually just got luck that the bus had passed by when it did. So as long as you have these stationery shots then you have what you need.

In AE:
As for in AE, you’ll be doing some roto masking to the layered scenes. I took the footage of my friend walking into the road and the footage of the car and layered it below the walking footage. I made a roto mask around him and his shadow. (It is also possible to mask just the car if you find that easier) The mask up until he gets hit by the car does not have to be perfectly around just his body but that just depends on how detailed you want to go. Also it helps to feather the mask to make the two scenes blend together a bit more. Make sure that the light is pretty much the same so the two layers blend well. Have the mask follow him up to the point where he gets hit and as the car comes into the shot tighten up the mask around the character getting hit. Tighten up the mask for the frames where the car is hitting him, and if you want you can bring in the mask on the character to make it look like his body is bending around the front of the car. Then just bring him slowly out of the picture as the car moves through the shot. Now once the car hits him for an extra effect, you can give him a horizontal gaussian blur which will make it seem more realistic as the character gets carried out of the shot. The hit sounds are just some random sound files of car doors slamming so I slowed the sound down a bit and it made that somewhat believeable hitting sound.

That is pretty much it. Hope this helps others achieve getting hit by cars. If anyone has anything to add that would be great. This is just how I went about it and in no way is it the only way to go about it. Thanks for asking!
 
Smack

Smack

Very cool, thanks for the explaination. Can't wait to try this. A video tut would be sweet if ya could.

Cheers
 
That was a nice effect. My only quibble would be the fact that the guy spent a lot of time looking both ways and should have seen the car. Perhaps if you do it again, have your subject spaced out in his own thoughts.
 
hah, I know we're not the best actors but I guess you could think that he did check both ways but the car came out of nowhere and hit him....But we'll definitly consider that next time....

Oh and Miniman I'm on a PC....If you wanna help me set it up I could probably make one....:)
 
I laughed at the first hit but the second hit really cracked me up.
I really liked the poses you guys had to curve around the bumpers.
 
Yeah we really looked cool pulling those moves in the middle of the street...There was an elementary school on the other side of the street and we got plenty of looks from confused teachers....It was so worth it...I wonder what was going through their heads while we were getting these shots....Thanks again for all the comments! :)

I'll see what I can do about making a video tutorial if anyone is still interested...Peace..
 
Okay, next one should have your clothes flying off and floating to the ground. Nudity gets better ratings also. :)
.
Edit....No nudity just some items left behind....clothes....hat....skateboard?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top