Thursday, November 16, 2006

Film Burn

OK, so you've bought your 35mm lens adaptor for your DV camera and you've shot your requisite things-coming-in-and-out-of-focus backyard test footage. You've even got it all cut together to some nice mopey guitar music. But something's missing.


filmBurn.ffx is an After Effects 7.0 Animation Preset that automatically creates the overexposed "roll-out" effect, where the tail (and the head if you want) of a clip flickers into overexposure. It's aware of the in- and out-points of your footage layers in the After Effects timeline, so you can experiment with different effects just by trimming your layers differently.

When you apply the preset you'll see several control sliders. Here's what they do:

Overall Flicker Amount controls a general exposure flicker that runs through the whole clip. Set it to zero for no flicker.

Overall Flicker Speed (fps) controls the flickers-per-second. Larger number = faster flicker.

Cut Flicker Speed (fps) controls the speed of the flicker effect that happens at the head and tail of the clip.

Cut Flicker Amount controls the intensity of the flicker effect that happens at the head and tail of the clip.

Max Burn (stops) controls the exposure, in f-stops, of the burn effect.

Tail Burn Max Time (frames) controls the length of the burn effect at the tail. Note that the length is randomized, so this value represents the longest burn you'd ever want to see, measured in frames.

Head Burn Max Time (frames) is the same thing, but for the head of the clip. Set it to 0 for no head burn.

Burn Tint allows you to select a color for the burn effect.

The last effect is the Exposure effect that makes it all happen, and you should not touch any settings here.

The fun thing about this preset is, if you have your edit assembled in AE, you can simply select all the layers and apply it. Easy!

This effect works really well with Magic Bullet. Just apply Look Suite to an Adjustment Layer over top of all your trimmed layers, and select the preset of your choice!

Download filmBurn.ffx (4kb ZIP file)

And remember, you can subscribe to ProLost TV in iTunes.

Music: Life From Afar by Oswald.

18 comments:

andy cochrane said...

very glad you posted the iTunes link, was not aware you were making materials available that way too- absolutely loving the blog so far!

Shervin said...

Only thing the preset needs is some way of speeding up the footage near the end, like when you turn off a 35mm camera. Dig the preset though.

Stu said...

Hi shervin, thanks for the comment! Believe it or not, that exact effect is something I included in my book. There's a project on the DVD that allows you to simulate hand-cranked footage, and you can animate the camera's crank speed manually to create that speed-up effect.

Matt said...

What a coincidence, as soon as I was reading this my brother sent me txt message saying he finally got his hvx200+M2 setup
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nuzz/299742435/

I'll tell him about this preset. BTW, I appied/interviewed with you guys last week. Keeping fingers crossed :) Great blog.

Mike Cav said...

Stu,

How did that filter make Marc Sadeghi look so dreamy-like...

Which 35mm adapter did you get? It's looking great.

Did anyone from the O go check out the Red screening the other day in LA??

thoughts?

Stu said...

Yes, we had homies there. 4K is definiely 10% better than 2K. And that footage of Marc was shot with an unmodded DVX100a!

dmc said...

Hey Stu,

Thanks for that one. It'll come in handy. Here's a link to my latest video that has been enhanced greatly through your posts regarding colour profliles & linear light in AE7. Let's here it for 32bit linear compositing. There's no way I could have done the skies at sunset the way i did (thats at the end). Switch off linear or 32bit and it was very dull.

http://www.dalemccready.com/movies/SweetheartWeb.mov

Anonymous said...

Noob question: I've added the .ffx file to my AE presets folder. Where does it show up in the Effects menu? I can't find it...

Stu said...

Hi Noob,

Open your Effects & Presets palette and search for it there, or the presets stuff is under the Animation menu.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I get an error message when applying the preset, it says:

class "effect" has no attribute or method with the name "color", expression deactivated.

I´m on the German Version of AFX 7, could this be the origin for the error ?

Priyesh

Stu said...

Hi Priyesh,

Yes, the preset does not have international matchnames in its expressions. I'll try to post a new version soon so you and other users of non-English AE can try it out.

I wish there was a way for the pickwhip to generate matchname syntax!

Anonymous said...

Hi Stu,

thanks for the response ( and the presets, I´ve tried rebel CC, too, very cool, works perfect ! ) - very interesting blog, by the way.

Priyesh Puthan Valiyandi

Anonymous said...

Hi stu,
Great preset,I hope u can do something very soon 4 the French people because he doesn't work on mine (same problem as Priyesh)
Long life 2 u

Eric

Paul said...

not currently an owner of your book, so perhaps you touch on it there. but t the montereyweb.mov movie is simply stunning ... am I correct in assuming you shot this in DV?! I see you mention 35mm adaptors etc. Any links to explanations of them (and benefits etc)? How have you graded these shots/sequences their look fantastic. great blog by the way I'm amazed I only just got put on to it.

annerose said...

These comments have been invaluable to me as is this whole site. I thank you for your comment.

silversurfer said...

Hey Stu,

I too LOOOOVED the ftg clip. I would love to know what "35mm adapter" you used. I have a HDR-HC1 HDV cam that takes fabulous images & would love to try this adapter. Please post whatever info you can on it...thanks.

Big fan of your work & The Orphanage in general...thanks for taking the time. What's the name of your book, BTW? Is it packin' a DVD loaded with Stu goodies?!?!

Joey

adamrobert said...

is this file compatible to download for adobe after effects CS3? When I tried to download it there was an error saying it was an unsupported filetype

Fishmen said...

Hi there!! Great preset, very usefull. I wonder if there´s a way to use it as a transition in Adobe Premiere. Thanks for now.