Muzzle flashes

[Storyteller]

I don't have After Effects or C4D, just a NLE editing program (Edius 6)... and Photoshop and Macromedia Flash & Fireworks in their Studio 8.

I want to apply muzzle flashes to a couple of scenes where a handgun is apparently fired. I've had a look at YouTube which has lots of advice - for how to do it with After Effects.

Wondered if anyone here could point me in the direction of how best to tackle the problem given my limitations.

Peter

[Chrisbitz]

http://www.detonationfilms.com/missionstatement.htm

This site has a lot of help and free stuff that I'm sure will help you!

[fraught]

I've done this using Pinnacle Studio 8 and Photoshop.

What you do is navigate to the frame of your film where you want the flash to appear.
Take a screen grab.
Transfer this to photoshop and paint your muzzle flash in or cut and paste one from stock.
Now go back to your timeline and add the grabbed frame back in.

Done.

[col lamb]

If you want to get a bit more ambitious what you can do with Photoshop is Rotoscope a short section of the video, you paint on individual frames and therefore can expand the muzzle flash over time.

Do a google search for "rotoscoping in photoshop" and you will find a few videos

[fraught]

I just did this for my latest film. I needed a character's eyes to turn black for a shot period... so i took a screen grab of each frame in sequence, loaded them into Photoshop, coloured the eyes in, then put them back into the timeline. Done. Looks great too!

[col lamb]

You are doing it the hard way.

In Premiere set the portion of the timeline where you want the effects to be the "Work Area" and export the work area only to a video file.

In Photoshop choose import and then select Video as frames, all the exported video will be imported together with each frame being a Layer, work on each Layer (frame) in turn and then render the output.

Job done in a fraction of the time it takes to screen grab each frame.

[fraught]

Oooo... never knew you could do that. Will give it a go! Cheers Col!

[chrisk]

Another way to do this in Premiere Pro (dont know about Edius) is to use the titler. Draw a muzzle flash using the titler draw tools and colour and align it as necessary. When placed on the time line the flash can be blurred or modified as required and keyframed to follow any motion. You do not need Photoshop.

Chris

[Chrisbitz]

What can be easier than
1. Download free, pre-keyed muzzle flash from Detonation films link in first post.

http://www.detonationfilms.com/UnitK-4.html
look for "THE BEST ALL-PURPOSE MUZZLE FLASHES EVAR!"

also, http://www.detonationfilms.com/Stock_Directory.html
look for "MUZZLE FLASHES AND GUN EFFECTS"
and you'll see a link to "Gun Sound Effects Pack (free)"

2. Composite with original footage.

All this talk of rotoscoping and hand drawing would make me not want to bother, and I'm an experienced filmmaker!

I expect Detonation films' free stuff may not quite be professional enough for you experts, but i've always found it perfectly acceptable for my needs... and it's so much easier than frame by frame editing..

I'm guessing Edius can do compositing standing on its head can't it?