How was this effect achieved?

[Trochaic]

I usually never shoot anything that requires me to do any special effects in post production (besides color correcting of course); now , however, the time has come for me to use after effects. What I need to do is have someone thrown off screen after being hit by a car. I read on AMF productions that they achieved this effect by animating a mask around someone and having him thrown off screen. I, however, have no experience and was wondering if someone could walk me through this in After Effects 6.5. Here is the video where the kid was thrown off screen. http://www.amfproductions.com/freddy/freddy_big.mov
Basically all I know is that I need to film the scene once with the kid in the road and then again with the car driving by. Any help is IMMENSELY appreciated.

[DEDFX]

That was good, you kinda acted like Dereck from Bad Taste. Is that even your video? Im just wondering because you don't know how to do it. I could also help you if its not your vid, if it is then ask your editor.

[Trochaic]

No that was just used as an example. So where do I start?

[DEDFX]

An easy way is to download the free 30-day trial of Flash 8.

[Trochaic]

I can't do it in After Effects?

[ipon70]

Excellent effect, I can appreciate the work that went into it.

Good deal, keep it up.

[Trochaic]

Excellent effect, I can appreciate the work that went into it.

Good deal, keep it up.

Lol, I'm going to clarify this one more time. I did not make that video, I merely want to know how to achieve the effect in Adobe After Effects 6.5.

[DEDFX]

You will be using after affects when your done with my flash tutorial.

[Trochaic]

Alright, got it. I'll go get Flash.

[Clarence]

I guess you could record the car coming up to the person (very slowly), and cut right before it touches them. Then, you could take a shot of the car continuing on without the person there. In After Effects, you could cut out some frames and add a motion blur to make the car look like its going faster.

Then, you could film a couple frames of the person bending over with his arms stuck out in front of a green screen. Place the clip right where the person dissapears, and key it it. Then, you could edit the speed and add a motion blur to make it match the passing car clip.

Or you could us CG, but I wouldn't reccomend it for such a short shot.

[Trochaic]

I think the mask animating would be easiest to do. I just need to know how to do that, or I might see if I can get my friend to do it frame by frame in photoshop.

[DEDFX]

you just need to animate the guy in flash and export it to AVI. with a blue background

[Clarence]

Yeah, I don't even know how masking works.

[OutcastJiob]

Going with Clarence's idea, I'd shoot the bit with the car pulling up to the guy. Then, I'd drive the car forward, have the person being run over grab ahold of the hood--as if they've been smacked into the front of the car--and have the driver go in reverse, slowly, with the "victim" hanging onto the front of the car (possibly holding onto a hidden handhold of some sort to keep themselves on, if need be). After you've got that, do a bit of quick cutting in your editing software and use some speed adjustment (including reversing the clip of the car going backwards so it looks like they're driving forward with the victim on the front of the car). If you keep the screen time of the actual impact down, you should be able to pull off a pretty convincing effect.

Then again, I don't actually have experience doing it that way: it just seems to be a safe and relatively straightforward way of doing it, to me.

[XhuntedoverlordX]

You could drive full speed into a mannequin.

[DEDFX]

I was saying doing what everyone is saying (2 tracks with person, without) but for the one without the person yuo add him in (its just a picture)

[Trochaic]

I really just need him to be thrown off screen on contact with the car, so a mannequin wouldn't work nor would Outcast's idea. If anyone could simply just tell me how to animate a mask in AE 6.5, that'd be great. (I couldn't get Flash to work for me.)

[Trochaic]

I really just need him to be thrown off screen on contact with the car, so a mannequin wouldn't work nor would Outcast's idea. If anyone could simply just tell me how to animate a mask in AE 6.5, that'd be great. (I couldn't get Flash to work for me.)

[Clarence]

This is kind of the same concept as a tutorial that NoControl Cinema has: http://www.nccinema.ch/efx13.html

[ipon70]

No No No, you dont run people over with cars or have them jump on the hood. Its actually a very simple effect but one that requires a stationary camera shot (ie..a tripod) and not moving the camera between shots. Anyway I tore the video apart, I believe the last frame right before he was "hit" is a freeze frame and he was extracted out of the screen as a stand alone. Basically a photoshop deal, cut around your subject and keep just the person, to be used as a layer above the main video layer. Look below at the pics I think they will explain it, and read what I have below each one.


This is the last frame that the guy moves in. At this point you would have your actor leave the scene and have the car come speeding through, same camera shot, same lighting, same everything.



Now the car is visible, the person has been removed and replaced with a cut out layer such as in photoshop.


Now in this picture you can actually see one person standing and part of the person moving.



Here in this picture you can actually see that the layer is in front of the car, and basically a flat rendition of the person is seen here.



In this final image you can see the guy doing a hand stand on the glass, not possible and surely not correct for physics.

Hope that helps, make no mistake this effect took the guy/girl a long time, and they used alot of blur to mask what was taking place, but still a very very good effect.