Brent Pierce
Here’s a neat little animated lower third that I made for our Easter production. You can download the After Effects project and insert any name you wish.
The project works in After Effects CS4 and above. I’ve also included static images of the lower third in case you don’t want to use the animated version. The font that I used is a free font from dafont.com called “One Direction.” I’ve included it in the download.
Here’s a neat little HD falling snow loop. (click the picture below to download)
Click the image to download.
If you shoot with DSLR’s, or any camera with a CMOS sensor, you’re bound to run into the “rolling shutter” issue when panning. I’m not going to explain in detail why this happens, but it basically makes your footage look crooked and slanted when you pan sideways really quickly.
So, to address this inevitable problem, I’ve created a free After Effects preset that fixes it. Simply apply the preset to your footage, and adjust the angle to “straighten” your footage.
There are 2 effects: “Angle” and “DON’T TOUCH THIS!”
Obviously, adjust the “Angle.”
Original footage.
Fixed with this preset.
Simple. You can also keyframe the effect to adjust for “whip pans.” For instance, if your footage starts static on something, then pans quickly to another subject.
Most of the time, when working with video, you’re going to be editing in 16×9 aspect ratio, which is the standard for HD video (1920×1080). But, sometime you’ll need to edit in a different aspect ratio. You can do this simply by adjusting the size of your video canvas, but there will be times where your output video file needs to be the common aspect of 16×9.
I’ve made simple overlays for some common film aspects. They are png image files that you place on top of your footage. Simple, right? Check ‘em out.
Here are the included aspects:
1.50:1 - Classic 35mm.
1.85:1 - Common US widescreen cinema standard.
2.35:1 - Anamorphic. Common in cinemas.
2.40:1 - Anamorphic. Common in cinemas and Blu-Rays.
2.55:1 - Original aspect of CinemaScope.
2.75:1 - Ultra Panavision 70
3.00:1 – Super Widescreen
There are also overlays which will convert 16×9 to 4×9 and visa-versa. And even square overlays, for all you Instagram lovers.
Adding the “pendulum” effect in After Effects has never been easier! 100% satisfaction or your money back!There are 3 adjustable parameters in this preset.
“Velocity: the speed of the rotation;
Amplitude: the amount of rotation;
Decay: the amount of decay.”
Watch this tutorial video to be enlightened.
Ah, ye ol’ handheld look. Personally, I love the handheld look in films. If you have a clip that was shot on a tripod, or motion graphics that you want to add realistic motion to, you can easily add handheld “shake” with this simple After Effects preset.
There are two adjustable effects parameters when you add the preset. One controls the “shake,” and the other controls the “rotation.” The default settings of 10 and 8, work well for most clips.
Apply the preset to a null object, then “pick whip” your footage to the null. Apply motion blur to your clip for better results.
You’ll see the difference in the two images below. The first one is the original, shot on a tripod. The second one is with the “Handheld Camera” preset applied.
Original footage, shot on a tripod.
Footage with “Handheld Camera” preset applied.
Watch this tutorial video to see how to use this preset. Let me know if you have any questions.
When honing your skills and becoming better at something, it’s always fun to see how the pros do things; whether that’s seeing how a DP lights a certain scene, seeing an editor’s workflow, or reading over a professionally written script.
Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” is an absolute masterpiece, and thanks to Anton Volkov, you can download the entire screenplay. It’s 165 pages, so I hope you like to read.
Download “The Dark Knight Rises” screenplay.
Purchase the book, “The Dark Knight Trilogy.”
Luke made a free pack of overlays that you place over your footage to make it seem like you’re looking through the viewfinder of a DSLR. Pretty sweet, huh? The overlays are just images, so there isn’t much customization as far as adjusting the on-screen settings, such as aperture, iso, battery life, etc. But, he’s got alot of neat stuff in the download, such as the sound effects from a DSLR, a shutter clip, focused points, etc.
Definitely worth it to grab these little overlays. You never know when you’ll need to use them. Check out his walkthrough video.
Say what? You want a free wallpaper? OK.
Click to make it big
A storm just passed over my house. I figured I would get some B-roll audio of the rain and thunder and such. You never know when you’ll need some background audio of a storm for a future project.
I recorded this simply with a Zoom H2. The storm died down as soon as I started recording, but I got a few good minutes of audio.
The 1st track is 41 seconds long, and was recorded in 4-channel surround sound mode. So there are 2 files; one file contains the 2 front audio tracks, and the other file contains the 2 rear tracks. If you don’t want to use all 4 tracks, just use the 2 rear tracks.
The other file that I recorded was simply stereo. It’s a long one; over 6 minutes.
Maybe you’ll find a use for stormy audio someday.
Enjoy
Everyone loves the Instagram app for their phones. It’s a cool way to create vintage/retro photos with a tap of the finger. Seriously, people go nuts over these type of filters. A while back, Daniel Box, created Photoshop actions of these filters. They’re awesome. Just a click of the mouse, and you’ve “Instagrammed” your photo in Photoshop.
I wanted a way to use these in applications like After Effects or Final Cut Pro. An easy way to achieve a simple color change is by using Look-Up-Tables (LUTs). I’m not gonna dive too deep into what exactly a LUT is, but basically, it communicates color changes from different applications. Aharon Rabinowitz posted a tutorial video about using Red Giant Software’s LUT Buddy, a free application by RGS to create and apply LUTs. It’s pretty helpful in introducing someone to what a LUT is, and how they work.
I took Daniel Box’s Instagram Photoshop actions, and made them into LUTs and presets to use with video. They work wonderfully. Keep in mind. LUTs are a bit limited in their functionality; they cannot apply things that use masks or generators, such as vignettes, diffusion, blurs, etc. But they are still awesome. If you are looking for more vintage presets for After Effects with more features and control, check out my Vintage FX presets.
How to use these presets.
For FCP7, Motion, and Premiere CS5
1. Download and install LUT Buddy from Red Giant Software. It’s free.
2. Apply the effect “LUT Buddy” to your footage, click Options, then Import LUT, then choose which effect you would like.
For After Effects
Download and install LUT Buddy from Red Giant Software. (If you have CS5 or CS6, skip this step. You don’t need LUT Buddy)
Copy the corresponding “Instagram” presets folder into your application presets folder. (Applications/Adobe After Effects/Presets)
There are 2 different AE presets folders. One is for CS3-CS4, and the other is for CS5-CS6.
For Dacinci Resolve
Place the LUT files in library/application support/blackmagic design/davinci resolve/LUT/CineSpace
Please note: You need Red Giant Software’s “Magic Bullet Looks” to use these presets.
Introducing “Awesome Looks” by Brent Pierce. This is my own Magic Bullet preset pack that I created, which I am providing to every filmmaker for FREE. In the past, I sold these presets for a small fee, but I now give them all to you, for free. (PS. Philip Bloom downloaded them a while back)
What is “Awesome Looks?”
With “Awesome Looks,” you have the power to create a unique emotion and style in your film with a simple click of the mouse. Once you apply a preset, you’ll notice that there are a few effects in the line that are not enabled. These disabled effects can be enabled to add a different desired look.
Most of the presets are perfect for a standardly exposed shot, but not every preset works with every shot. If a preset looks a bit too harsh, you can easily pull down an effect and get it to look like you want. Some of the presets in “Awesome Looks” are a bit extreme and just for fun. But who knows, maybe someone needs to make an actor look like a hippie zombie.
Below are a couple quick video samples with all 32 presets.
This video was graded entirely with these presets.
So there you go, as you can see, “Awesome Looks” presets are great for whatever stylized shot you may desire. There is a text file inside the download that will instruct you on how to install these presets. Also, if you want to get even more stylized, check out these free film burns.
NOTE: I have heard some issues with these presets not working in Magic Bullet Quick Looks. They should work fine with Photolooks though.
Enjoy!
With the never-ending quest for HD video to have the look and feel of film, users have gone to great lengths to make viewers feel as if they are experiencing scenes from a Buster Keaton film. One fairly common technique is the addition of “film burns” over footage. The film burn, or film flash, look typically comes from the misfeed of film through the camera gate behind the lens of a film camera, creating an accidental stylization look of red and yellowish hues on the negative and the print.
Digital video clips of film burns can be purchased from artbeats.com for a small fortune, or if you do enough digging, you can find a few good/free clips scattered throughout the world wide web. Various blogs, forums, videos, Google searches, and a little creativity have lead me to a few.
Please NOTE: these are all free footage files that were been made free by the original author. I have given credit to them.
You can download the filmburns by following me on Twitter or “liking” Cineblur on Facebook, via the link below.
To use the film burns:
Place the film burn clip on a layer above the edited footage.
Change the transfer mode of the film burn, (screen, add, hard light, overlay, etc.)
Then adjust opacity of the film burn layer accordingly or leave it at 100%.
If your transfer mode does not key out the black, (hard light, darken, multiply) use a color key filter, and select black, and adjust the tolerance until you get what you want.
I personally favor the “add” transfer mode the most.
If the pixelation becomes an issue, mostly on the SD clips, use a blur to soften the edges until you do not see the large, digital “squares.”
You can also do some pretty creative things, like speeding up or slowing down the underlying clip to create a more believable effect. Also, try adding a “film flash” transition under the burn clip, to give a sweet effect. The “Too Much Too Soon” effects package is great, and contains an awesome film flash transition. And it’s free! I highly suggest any FCP editor to download it. Read More →
