Difficulty: Medium
With Halloween approaching next month and graveyards growing spookier, it seems like a good idea to look at ghost hunting. Or rather ghost creating.
I satiate my ghostly fixation by watching Weird Travels on the Travel
Channel. On Weird Travels, they never show real ghosts, but create some
really spooky effects. I'm going to show you how to create your own
phantom.
You will need:
- AE 6.0 Production Bundle or above (or an older version with the Cycore
FX plug-ins installed)
- Note: There are no project files associated with this project
because they're just too darn big. Get your own footage.
Shooting the footage properly
The idea is to have a clean clip of video with no people in it, and
then another section of video with your ghost doing their thing. You can
take a short section, as I did, and loop it. If you have any movement in
your shot like blowing branches, they might not loop seamlessly. It's
easier just to shoot a longer clean shot.
You will want to make sure your camera is locked down, so put it on a
tripod or a tombstone or a table. If you shoot it hand-held, have fun
motion stabilizing.
Getting a clean 'background plate'
Import your
footage, deinterlacing as necessary. See the Adobe After Effects Help file
for information on interpreting your footage. To open the Help file, go to
Help > After Effects Help.
Drag your background footage to the little icon at the bottom of the
project window. This will create a new composition that is the duration
and size of your video.
Looping your clean background plate.
There are two ways to loop your footage. Use the first if you have one
clip that has both the clean background with out your ghost, and the
footage containing your ghost. Use the second method if you've captured it
in separate clips so that your background plate is the only thing in the
clip.
Loop method #1
If you have your video captured in one clip, break it into two clips by
using the Split Layer command.
1. First drag your footage to the timeline as explained above.
2. Go the point in your timeline where the second clip begins.
3. Select Edit > Split Layer. The layer will split at exactly the
point where you are in the timeline.
