A few simple ideas to give your film some interesting effects. To make an interesting video, it's going to need some kind of tweak or gimmick. Just pointing the camera at the subject and pressing go is fine, but it wont lead to a very interesting video. Try to visualize what the video could be later edited into. Be aware of your video framing. Try to make some relation between the subject and background. Say perhaps that the background has two trees in it, then try and get yourself into a position that the subject falls in-between the two trees. Symmetry in the frame is also nice for a even and interesting background. Also try and get a definite foreground and background, this'll give a sense of depth. Remember, warm red colors seem closer to you and cold blues seem further away. It's just a trick of the eye, but you can use it to your advantage. Also use of a tripod or steady cam is essential for a good shot, and also if your background is constant and your subject is moving, you can cross fade between different clips and it seems like only your subject is changing. If possible, more than one camera angle is also good. Let them record at the same time and it'll give you a lot more options later on in the editing phase. If you only have one camera, try and break up your recording point. Just a single camera angle shot will nearly always look boring after a few minutes. Break it up, variety, and always try and have some relevance or reference point in all your shots. Generating your ideas. As nearly everything else, ideas generally aren’t new. Somebody somewhere will have already thought of it. But fresh ideas to your videos will always be an improvement. Choose an effect that you've seen in a movie and try to reproduce it in your own style. A clever effect to try is background manipulation. Focus on a subject, then walk away from the subject while zooming in. The idea is to keep the subject the same size while changing the distance to the camera. The effect is very strange. It gives a zooming effect on only the background, seen often in horror movies or moments of realization. Just one of a million things that you can try. In my opinion a little test video is in order when trying a new idea. In your own time record a short piece that incorporates your new idea and then see how you can adapt it later in the editing stage. It'll lead you to newer ideas and let you know what are the draw backs to the certain effect. Everything you see in a mainstream film can be adapted to your smaller video in someway or another. Ok perhaps large CG dinosaurs might be a little daunting but in reality it is possible. Sure you don’t have the resources or time to make anything super detailed, but don’t limit yourself to just straight up filming. Matrix camera effects, freezing a moment and moving around it is quite easy, you just need a few recording sources. Set them up in an angle around your subject and let them all record at the same time, then when you get to the editing you line the different shots up on top of each other and then depending on how many recording source you have, you'll be able to achieve a bit of movement in your freeze frame movement. Wire acrobatics is also pretty easy. You have to be fit and relatively flexible. But set up a wire or rope for your shot so you can jump and stay in the air or lean an impossible angle. First record just the background and then the stunt itself. Back on the computer you have to export your clip as single frames and then open them up in a Photoshop or other photo editing program. You take your background frame and copy the bits you need over onto your other frames. This is how you digitally remove a wire, it's a tedious job but very easy to achieve. Remember 25 frames a second is a decent enough frame rate. So a 6 second stunt is already 150 frames that need to be edited. Like I said tedious but certainly not impossible. Using the same technique, you can also add things to single frames, for example record yourself holding a stick, then later frame by frame add a blurry orange line over the stick and you've made yourself a light saber. Time control is achieve by recording in a certain frame rate and then playing back in another. For a very smooth slow motion effect you need a special camera that'll record at a very high frame rate, like 100s or 1000s of frames a second. Then later when you play it back at your normal speed (around 25fps) you'll be able to slow down bullets or breaking glasses or drops of water. Personally I love this effect, but it's very hard to reach for the amateur video maker, as these high speed cameras are very specialized equipment and hideously expensive. On the other end of the spectrum speeding up a piece of film is easy. With your normal camera you'll have all the frames you need. Try recording a piece where your subject is moving extra slowly then speed it up so the subject is moving at normal speed, you'll have a high speed background. Green screen effects, you need a even background of a single color that’s doesn’t appear in your subject. Then later you extract that color from your video and put in a different background. Also pretty easy. Just a few ideas to get you on your way. Dream up your own effects and please share them with us on the forum. |