Recreating THE RING's creature effect

Norm Sanders

Norm Sanders

Script Wrangler
This is a pretty hack job, but just wanted to see if I could create a similar effect to what they did in THE RING, specifically when the girl crawled out of the TV and was black & white while everything else was in color.

I moved VERY slowly, but perhaps a little too smoothly, then sped up the 24P footage 1000% (10x). Also duplicated the track above, made that one B&W, then used bezier mask and did a quick & dirty job key framing through the largest movements.

A little work, then some make up/FX this could look pretty creepy. I also did a side to side with my head to se what that would look like from a similar crazy doctor character I saw once in HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL or another one of those flicks ... that guy scared the crap out of me.

I didn't bother to throw SFX into this, as it was just a quick experiment I did this evening here in my office/garage.

www.eefilm.com/misc/ringtest.wmv

Because I did this SO quickly (i.e. 20 or so minutes), it's VERY dirty at the beginning, so you can see a definite mask ... still gives the idea of how to work it for a project where you've got time to really get in there tight.
 
Very nice piece, especially when you point out how fast you did it. This is one of those moments where you really wish Vegas had motion tracking.
 
Yeah, you're not kidding! I saw that as a feature in Adobe's AE, and just drooled ... boy that'll save some time when Sony can add that to Vegas someday.

Thanks Spot.
 
It would be nice, but a bit beyond what an NLE does. But then, Vegas already has effects capablities well beyond other NLEs, so who knows? Maybe.
 
yeah, but Vegas is already a "bit beyond what an NLE does" at several levels. Maybe Vegas is starting to redefine what an NLE is?
 
yeah, and besides the portion at the begining the mask is pretty damn good. If you put an extra hour into tightening up that first shot and add the scan lines i think you could have something pretty cool.

If you can try and add some flicker to the lines if possible as well.
 
Yeah as a fan of the Japanese horror / thriller genre I like that. The other thing is probably as this was a quick job, maybe you didnt bother but I would definitely cool that lighting.
 
Nice work Norm! Looking good!

I think the doctor with the fast head was in the remake of House on Haunted Hill. That was totally creepy!!! Probably the best visual effect in that movie for effectiveness.

-Robert
 
Yeah that doctor's fast head shaking scared the bejeebees out of me. Because I was just squirling around, I didn't save the VEG file, so I'll have to start from scratch if I'm to do it again ... that said, maybe I'll give a little more preperation to the next one & see how freaky I can really make it work.

In the meantime, why don't some of you try it & see if we can get a bit of a RING-effect-friendly-competition going? It'd be fun to see how others do it (if they go about it differently), etc ... one catch, has to be all in Vegas, no AE, etc. Let's see how well this NLE can do! :thumbsup: :beer:
 
Argh.... I wouldn't even know where to begin in AE or Vegas!!! I have both but haven't gotten that advanced with effects yet. But I'll be game to put in my .02 worth to everyone who does! Sounds like fun!

-Robert
 
Actually, if you have auto-save enabled, you prolly still have that veg on your system as a .bak.
 
Thanks, Spot, I'll see if I can find that .bak file, and perhaps just tighten that shot up a little bit ... then again, if I'm going to put detailed work into something, I'd rather do it with more preplanning (i.e. makeup/FX, etc.).

Daygola814, thanks ... I just held my body in place & stayed as still as possible while moving my head from side to side. The entire clip was spead up 1,000% (went into properties & selected 4x playback, and inserted velocity envelope to 250%), then I used motion blur & supersampling on that section with the headshake/blur.
 
instead of moving very slowly, try setting your shutter speed WAY down, like 1/8. Also, do the entire scene backwards and then reverse it in Vegas or After Efects. with a slow shutter speed you will have much more time to "act", as well as exaggertated motion blur. I say film the scene backwards because this is often a way to get a strange "feel" to movement. Then simply reverse you footage and increase speed to need.
 
Rapier_100a said:
instead of moving very slowly, try setting your shutter speed WAY down, like 1/8. Also, do the entire scene backwards and then reverse it in Vegas or After Efects. with a slow shutter speed you will have much more time to "act", as well as exaggertated motion blur. I say film the scene backwards because this is often a way to get a strange "feel" to movement. Then simply reverse you footage and increase speed to need.
Click to expand...


Very true. Thats the best way to get the unnatural feel of movement for the creature! Hehe. I think im going to go do that right now. Well actually im in my military uniform and that would just look stupid.
 
I agree with the the acting it out backwards, then reversing it for a unique look, but a big issue with this would be landing your mark without seeing where you're going. I may try that as a test, but I'll also try to use less muscle control & fail slightly here & there to get more of the sudden jerk effect.

I do, however, disagree with the slow shutter speed. I was actually thinking of setting shutter to 150th or 250th ... at least to test it out. With a slow shutter speed, the blur might be cool on the head shake part, but would smooth out the rest that I intend to have jerky ... and I also don't want potential for a ghosting/blur effect as I walk, unless there was a burst of intense speed as I ran up to a victim, etc. ... so for that, the slow shutter could look cool.

I think this is okay to say in here, because it's the Vegas forum, but I'm a huge advocate in shooting clean then doing it all in post. I don't like to risk being stuck with a look because I did it in camera, when I can usually produce the same exact thing in post.
 
Envision said:
I agree with the the acting it out backwards, then reversing it for a unique look, but a big issue with this would be landing your mark without seeing where you're going. I may try that as a test, but I'll also try to use less muscle control & fail slightly here & there to get more of the sudden jerk effect.

I do, however, disagree with the slow shutter speed. I was actually thinking of setting shutter to 150th or 250th ... at least to test it out. With a slow shutter speed, the blur might be cool on the head shake part, but would smooth out the rest that I intend to have jerky ... and I also don't want potential for a ghosting/blur effect as I walk, unless there was a burst of intense speed as I ran up to a victim, etc. ... so for that, the slow shutter could look cool.

I think this is okay to say in here, because it's the Vegas forum, but I'm a huge advocate in shooting clean then doing it all in post. I don't like to risk being stuck with a look because I did it in camera, when I can usually produce the same exact thing in post.
Click to expand...

Landing on your mark would be easy, just have someone telling you where to step!

A higher shutter speed like 150 is far in excess of what you need. Normal shutter speed for 24fps is 1/48 and for 60i is 1/60. If you are shooting progressive, you are going to have some serious strobing on your hands, not to mention light reducion which you will have to make up for with iris manipulation. And, you will have hell of a time getting any motion blur at all.

However, there is a cool work around.
This is how I would do it in After Effects, but I am sure you can do the same in Vegas somehow.

Take your original footage and open it, making sure it is recognized as lower field first (if you shot interlaced, if you didn't this wont work)

Put that video onto a track. Open the same piece of footage again, only this time have it be upper field first.

Place the upper field clip on top of the lower field clip and reduce the opacity of the upper to 50%.

This gives an astonishingly nice result of more motion blur, as you are quite literally seeing two different frames at the same time, with the one turned down. I have used this technique on many occasions when someone shot interlacced and wanted a "film" feel. But either way, it is a controllable effect since you can keyframe opacity.

For Vegas, you may have to capture the clip twice and rename it Clip one and Clip two to get the interlaced thing working. Maybe not. You don't have to in AE, but I am not very skilled with the manipulation parts of Vegas, I use it more to color correct and for its audio friendliness.

Good luck though, and some scan lines would be sweet too. Also, find some way to incoroporate a midget somewhere. You can always use a good midget. :thumbsup:
 
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