Stopping in mid air

T

tweir10988

Member
Ok i'm doing my Senior Thesis project in highschool on "video editing" because i've been doing it for about 3 years independently and my school was looking for a handful of seniors to do an independent study on anything they are passionate about. Well they said it was ok for me to do editing for it and i think it's going to turn out really cool. Another one of my friends is also doing a project like mine but his is on magic... like david blane crap. It might sound bad but he is seriously amazing and the people's reactions on the street are priceless.

So we both decided that since he needed a way to show the school he is getting better at magic and that i am doing editing that we should do a MAGIC VIDEO. I wasn't too excited about this at first but then we decided it could be some of his serious magic tricks with some funny, completely impossible things he could do (like walking on water, floating around, walking up trees...ect). It's kind of like a Daviv Blane/ Chris Angel parody kind of thing. Plus his dad owns a Canon XL H1 that he's letting us use so that helped make my mine up for me in doing this project.

But for one of out little skits, we wanted to have him jumping up and down on a trampoline and then when he gets to the top of his jump he just stops in mid air (maybe even turns horizontal to the ground as if he were laying on an invisible couch. Now i won't be moving the camera I don't think because that would make it quite a bit harder i would imagine because i havent ever tried anything like this before. We will be getting a green screen also because i'm sure we'd need that but does anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish this effect to make it as seamless as possible... and without rigging up some sort of a harness thing to make him hang there. I have After Effects 6.5 and Premiere 1.5 on my pc.

Any help would be much appreitiated and i'd love to show you guys what i come up with whenever i finish.

Tristan
 
Levitation - Look Ma, no gravity!

Levitation - Look Ma, no gravity!

Hi Tristan,

Sounds like a fun project regardless of what you tackle. If you're serious about special effects and would like to invest in book, consider something like "Digital Video Production Cookbook" or maybe "Digital Video Hacks". While the later has less focus on special effects, it does have a nice write-up on the bullet-time effect (pg 117-118) that most will remember from "The Matrix" movie (moving the camera through space, created by guru John Gaeta). Unfortunately, this effect requires several cameras. So perhaps you might want to start with something manageable such as making your friend disappear in mid-air; keep your camera very still on tripod when recording, pasting in video without him after he leaves the camera. Better yet, frame the camera so when he bounces up on about the third or fourth time the viewers only see the lower half of his body; then you get on the trampoline (wearing his pants and shoes) and reproduce the bounce and when you come down the audience sees YOUR face! (again, cut-n-paste) I'm sure you can come up with other variations... Yet another feasible effect would be slow motion; record at a fast shutter speed, slowing the motion during editing.

OTOH, if your editing software supports layers, you could come up with some nice effects by placing your friend on another layer at the top of a bounce - I'm sure your imagination could run wild on what to do next...

Time lapse effects are fun when the talent remains still but that won't work for your shoot.

BTW, on the youtube links from the prior poster, the first one you could certainly do with post production editing, and the second effect would require compositing (i.e., an outdoor green screen). If you're a glutton for punishment (wink), go for it... but pay special attention to placing the screen where you'll get uniform lighting on it to pull a good composite (and consider time of day, etc)

Warm Regards, Michael
 
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tweir10988 said:
we wanted to have him jumping up and down on a trampoline and then when he gets to the top of his jump he just stops in mid air (maybe even turns horizontal to the ground as if he were laying on an invisible couch.
Click to expand...

Here are my low-budget ideas. Just sitting here thinking about the possibilities--no professional expertise on this matter.
Put your green screen in the background so that nothing is in your frame behind the trampoline except the green screen. Bump up the shutter speed so you can use slo-mo. Get some shots where your frame includes the trampoline itself as he's jumping on it, then some others where the trampoline is not visible--just him going up and down (green screen fills entire background). Also get some shots of both of these framed shots without the green screen. That way you can use the natural background when needed in post (sky, trees, whatever). Now, look at shots of him jumping with trampoline not visible. Go into a room with a table in middle and put green cloth completely covering table and anything else in room. When you film this your actor must be completely surrounded by green. Get him into the very same pose he had in the jumping shots, standing in FRONT OF the table. That's his starting point. Then film him "freezing" in that pose, looking around like "Hey, how come I'm not falling?" Then he starts walking around, sits on table, lies on table, whatever. In post, take the shots where you don't see the trampoline but with green screen in background. Layer the shots of him "frozen" in place in front of table, and another layer of sky over the trampoline (or whatever was in bgrnd). Key out the green. Take it from there.

Some of this may have been technically incorrect or impossible but you should be able to make it work. Hope this was not confusing but I get the feeling you get where I'm going with this.
 
mystico said:
Here are my low-budget ideas. Just sitting here thinking about the possibilities--no professional expertise on this matter.
Put your green screen in the background so that nothing is in your frame behind the trampoline except the green screen. Bump up the shutter speed so you can use slo-mo. Get some shots where your frame includes the trampoline itself as he's jumping on it, then some others where the trampoline is not visible--just him going up and down (green screen fills entire background). Also get some shots of both of these framed shots without the green screen. That way you can use the natural background when needed in post (sky, trees, whatever). Now, look at shots of him jumping with trampoline not visible. Go into a room with a table in middle and put green cloth completely covering table and anything else in room. When you film this your actor must be completely surrounded by green. Get him into the very same pose he had in the jumping shots, standing in FRONT OF the table. That's his starting point. Then film him "freezing" in that pose, looking around like "Hey, how come I'm not falling?" Then he starts walking around, sits on table, lies on table, whatever. In post, take the shots where you don't see the trampoline but with green screen in background. Layer the shots of him "frozen" in place in front of table, and another layer of sky over the trampoline (or whatever was in bgrnd). Key out the green. Take it from there.

Some of this may have been technically incorrect or impossible but you should be able to make it work. Hope this was not confusing but I get the feeling you get where I'm going with this.
Click to expand...

yea i think that is a really good start... especially for just thinking of it off the top of your head but yea i'll give something along those lines a try... the only thing that might be a problem is after getting him into the position he stops in mid air, he'll move a little, but then have to get back into that same position again so he can fall back down... maybe not.... but i'll give it a try.

I just wanted to make it a seamless as possible so maybe it'll be a trail and error kinda thing
 
Have him standing on a table or box like was suggested with green screen then have him jump off....then just invert the clip to make him look as if he was jumping up and floating.
 
but....it will look like he is jumping and not part of the trampoline smoothness....so to smooth it out you have to hit him in the knees with a green bat to make him fall :)
Also take a look at Snodart's website for simple but convincing shots.
http://www.snodart.com/clips.php
 
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