Help. Adding light to a stop light

[princethomas]

Say I have footage of a stop light. Really like a drag racing Ready Set Go kind of light. I have three lights. They are all the same color. I have a shot of the first one lighting up and then a shot of the second one lighting up so that there are two lit with the third unlit. I want to make the third light up and need to "draw" in the light somehow.

I have final cut express and I have have photoshop. I think I can draw the screenshots appropriately, but not sure how to put them back into the film. For each of the other two its basically only 4 frames from Zero light to a little light, to mostly lit to fully lit.

Any help here would be hot.
-Tom

 

[Michael Carter]

The biggest issue would be if everything was shot locked down and all the elements are in the same place, for the entire shot - each plate. In that case you could mask out one of the "lit" lights and change the color in photoshop, and "float" it (transparent BG) and save as a PNG - then drop on your timeline. Don't now if express allows this.

If there's motion - if the light is hanging/swinging or the camera moves - you'd need to track motion and possibly rotation - more of an after effects job.

Your only other issue can be dropping a still onto moving footage - sometimes it really looks like a still dropped in. Matching grain can help there.

 

[RickyC]

This is pretty easy. Just duplicate your original layer, and cut around the second light turning on and create a good mask around it. Use something like Tritone to easily change the color of the light and move it down to the last one.

And MIchael is right, if there is movement you'll have to track it in, etc etc