The Next J.J Abrams?

Last week we were given a tutorial from Video Copilot on animating a still image to make it look like it is moving. The above result is what I came up with, and overall I found the tutorial very useful, and saw how I could apply it to my own work during this project. Having used Video Copilot before when trying to create new effects on previous work, I was familiar with how those tutorials worked.

However, I didn't stick entirely to the tutorial in some ways as I didn't like the personal style of that complete effect that much. For one I didn't have the optical flares plug-in Andrew used in his project, but I disliked the flickering of the flares he used also as I found it to be too distracting. Also his light on the flare was very warm, and I found that distracting as well so I opted for something a little lighter and more natural.

Changing the colour to the lens flare was slightly more complicated than the tutorial as after effects does not give you that option naturally. So, to create that I used the lens flare effect provided and attached it to a null object, then put an adjustment layer on to that null object and played with some colour correction tools.

Also, the multiple ways he showed me to create a camera shake was nice, but when I tracked the real footage and applied it, I found that I personally didn't like the amount of shake created from that footage, so I just used the digital shake created and made it more shaky by changing a few values. I understand the importance of using real footage for a more realistic look, but I felt that was going a little overboard.

I think the effect turned out pretty well in the end, and I'm pleased with it. Here's a link to the Video Co-pilot tutorial if you don't know of the site currently: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/animating_a_still/