Hello everyone, and welcome to HitFilm Express 2017.
I’m Axel from HitFilm, and in this video we are going to look at creating a realistic
fall stunt, from the short film Westworld to Yuma, that we produced together with Film
Riot.
Here is the shot we will be creating.
It seems fairly straightforward, right?
Previously, the character has died and fallen off a roof, as happens, and here the gun lands
in focus, then he lands behind it.
But how do you film that without injuring your stunt man, and ensure that the gun lands
in focus?
Well, here’s how!
This is the original footage for that shot.
It is framed pretty close to the ground, so the gun can be dropped a short distance, and
its easy to control exactly where it lands.
By separating the two landings, the gun and the person, and filming them as separate elements,
its easier to have full control over each one.
So the gun lands, then our actor walks in, and again, because the shot is framed low
to the ground, he can jump up out of the frame and fall in from a very short distance, so
he doesn’t get damaged in the body.
But, part of the reason he doesn’t get hurt is because as he lands, right here, he is
catching himself a bit, with his hands.
That is not really accurate behavior for a dead person, that seems more like something
a person who is alive would do, so we want to try and remove that bit, so he hits harder.
There is your mission, should you choose to accept it, so let’s get started.
Let’s launch HitFilm, and create a new project.
The Home screen that appears when you launch HitFilm Express 2017 gives you direct access
to your recent projects, and immediate access to create a new project.
It also links you to the User Guide, and a variety of useful learning resources for the
software.
Click the New button to create a new project, and the project screen opens.
This lets you set up your project exactly the way you want.
The footage that accompanies this tutorial uses a resolution of 1920 x 720, and it has
a frame rate of 24.
Its worth getting familiar with your camera and what resolution and frame rate it uses,
so you can choose the right project settings right at the start of each project.
If you aren’t sure what settings to use, though, its still ok, we can just leave the
default settings and sort that out later.
Click the Start Editing button to create a new project, and we move to the Edit screen.
Here we have the main HitFilm interface.
The Media panel is where all the video and images we import will be listed.
The Editor timeline is where we can sequence those video clips to build our project.
The Trimmer shows the clip we are currently editing, and the Viewer shows the current
frame on the timeline.
So, we need to import some video.
Click the Import button in the Media panel, and navigate to the Baddie Lands.mp4 video
file.
The link is just below, if you haven’t downloaded it yet.
Once it is imported, we can get to work on it.
Right-click the video clip and select Make Composite Shot.
This will create a new timeline containing our video.
You can learn more about composite shot timelines in our Westworld Sky Replacement tutorial,
but all of our work on this scene will be done in a composite shot.
The first thing that happens in this shot is the gun landing, so play the timeline until
the gun lands.
We want to cut the video shortly after the gun lands, so we can remove the middle section
where the actor walks in.
So, drag the playhead until you find the exact frame where the gun first contacts the ground.
The timecode should be 3:22.
Now, drag the playhead forward 8 frames, to 4:06, and select the Slice tool.
Cut the clip at the playhead, and it will be split into two layers.
Now we need to play forward to the frame where the actor has jumped up in the air, and just
starts falling into frame.
This will be around 21:17.
Once the playhead is there, click the selection tool, then drag the starting edge of the second
clip over to the playhead.
Then, drag the entire clip back until it meets the end of the first clip.
Now, if we play through that, it already works ok, just like that.
But, as we mentioned before, we don’t want this dead guy breaking his fall with his hand,
so let’s use another trick to make this even better.
What we will do is find the frame where our character fully contacts the ground, then
cut him out of that frame, and replace the frames where he catches himself with animation
of that cutout falling.
If that sounds difficult, don’t worry, its not.
And I’m here to walk you through every step of the process.
Find this frame, at 4:15, where the guy’s arm is not supporting him any more.
You can use the period and comma keys to move the playhead one frame at a time in either
direction.
Once we have the correct frame, we will use a freehand mask to cut the character out.
Our tutorial on Sky Replacement explains masks in more detail, if you want to learn more.
But for now, select the Freehand Mask tool, select our second clip on the timeline, and
then click around the edge of the character to cut him out.
This doesn’t need to be super accurate, because we will be adding lots of blur to
it, but come on, what’s the matter with doing it right?
Where the edges are already blurred, place the controls points in the center of the blur.
Work your way completely around the dude, until we finish by clicking again on our first
point to close the mask.
Select the Controls panel by clicking its tab, and open the Mask controls.
Under Shape, find the Feather Strength property, and increase it to 20.
This softens the edges of the mask so we don’t have a hard line.
And that’s the shape we will animate.
But since he is only in this position for one frame of the video, we need a way to stretch
this out over several frames to animate the fall.
So here is what we will do: we will create a still image of this frame, that we can animate.
In the Viewer, open the Options menu and select Export Frame.
Let’s call it Falling Baddie Masked, choose a location for it, and save.
Once it is exported, disable the mask by clicking its checkbox.
Any effect or mask in HitFilm can be enabled and disabled using its checkbox.
Now we will fine-tune our edit to remove the actor catching himself.
Advance one frame, then trim the second clip to start on that frame.
That removes the frame that is contained in our cutout from the timeline.
Then, extend the end of the first clip to that same frame.
Now we have these empty frames where we can add the actor back in using the image we just
exported.
Let's zoom in a bit on our timeline, using the zoom slider right here, then reposition
the playhead to 4:11, which is where we want our animation of the dude falling to start.
In the media panel, Import that image into your project, and drag it onto the timeline.
When you drag a layer onto the timecode area of the timeline, you will get blue crosshairs
indicating where it will be placed.
This makes it easy to add a clip starting at a certain timecode, or at a certain level
within the layer stack.
Add our image starting at 4:11, at the top of the layer stack.
We only need this to last a few frames, so you can cut it where the second clip starts,
using the Slice tool, and then select and delete the second half, with the Selection
tool.
Next we need to animate the position of this image, so he is falling into the frame.
To do this, we will use keyframes.
Keyframes allow you to save different values for a property at specific points in time,
so you can control how different values change.
In this case, we want to change the values of the position property, so this cutout image
is in a different location on each frame.
So, on the timeline, open the Transform controls for this layer, and find the Position property.
Just to the left of the name, there is a little circle.
You will notice that most properties have this.
This is the keyframe toggle and if we click it, it activates keyframing, and creates a
keyframe at the current timecode, containing the current value.
So, make sure your playhead is at 4:15, the last frame where the image is visible, and
Enable keyframing.
This little diamond on the timeline is the keyframe, and we can see that its value is
0, 0, and it is saved at 4:15.
Enable keyframing for the Rotation property as well.
Now, move the playhead to the first frame of this layer, at 4:11, and we will move the
layer to create a good new keyframe.
On the Viewer, switch back from our mask tool to the Selection tool, and the positioning
widget will appear.
These arrows can be used to move the layer is specific directions.
We want this guy to fall straight down, so we can drag this arrow straight up until he
is out of frame, and the Position Y value is about 400.
The two position values here are X first, which is left to right, and Y second, which
is top to bottom.
As soon as we have moved the layer, a new keyframe is automatically created, saving
our new position value at the current timecode.
And the layer will automatically move from one position to the other in the frames in
between.
So we don’t need to change the position on every frame, we can just create these two
key frames, at the key positions of the movement, and Hitfilm will work out where the layer
should be on all the other frames.
Let’s add a Rotation keyframe at 4:11 as well, just to keep a bit more motion in this
still image as he falls.
If we rotate that about 16 degrees, that should do, and another keyframe is automatically
created.
Now we can play the timeline back, and see what our fall is looking like.
Not bad, eh?
But there is another thing we want to add, and that is some motion blur.
As the actor is moving in the actual footage, it creates blur in the direction he is moving,
so we want to get the same effect on our still image.
In HitFilm, this is as simple as one click.
Just to the right of the layer name, there is a Motion Blur toggle, if we click that,
then motion blur is enabled, and HitFilm automatically calculates the direction and the amount of
blur that should be present, based on how fast the layer is moving, and the direction
it is moving in.
And that finishes off the animation.
Now you can use these same masking and keyframing techniques we just learned to create a shadow
beneath this guy as he falls.
But first, we need something to create it out of.
So we will create a new Plane layer.
Here on the timeline, we have a menu where you can create a variety of types of new layers,
so open that menu and select Plane.
A plane is just a rectangle filled with a solid color, though you can add other things
to it using effects.
The Window that pops up lets us set the Plane Properties.
Name this plane Shadow, leave the resolution as it is, and make sure the color is set to
black, and click OK.
By default this plane is added to the top of our timeline, so we can’t see anything
else.
Open its Transform controls, either on the timeline or in the control panel, and set
the Opacity to 50%, so we can see through it.
Trim this layer to its the same length as our masked image.
Now we will use a Freehand Mask, select our plane, and draw a long thin shape for the
shadow.
If we find the frame where he lands, at 4:15, we can draw it right over the top of him to
ensure it is properly positioned on the ground.
Try to keep the shape a bit random, which helps it look less artificial.
Now as this guy gets closer to the ground, his shadow should become darker and more defined,
so we want to add some animation to control the changes in those values.
Set the opacity of the layer back to 100%, then at 4:15, open the mask controls and set
the Feather Strength to 45 and enable keyframing for it, then set Opacity to 30% and enable
Draw keyframing for it.
The shadow should be underneath our guy, so drag the Shadow layer down below the Falling
Baddie image.
Now step back to the first frame of the layer, and set Opacity to 12 and Feather Strength
to 80 or 90.
And let’s play through this.
Incidentally, if your computer can’t play the timeline in real-time, and its lagging
or stuttering a bit, then you can use the RAM Preview, which is this button over here,
to pre-render the scene for viewing.
Just move the playhead to the start of the section you want to render, and then click
the button.
This blue bar indicates the area that is rendered, so let it render through the section you want
to preview, then move the playhead back to the start and click the Play button to see
how it looks.
Pretty convincing, right?
This timeline is still the length of our original clip, which is way longer than we need it
to be now, so let’s trim that down.
Click this cog at the bottom left of the timeline to open its Properties, and change the duration
to 9:00, which is plenty for what we need, then click OK.
And now, let’s export the scene.
Just above the Properties button are two Export buttons.
The bottom one lets you export a predefined portion of your timeline, and the top one
exports the entire contents of the timeline, which is what we want.
So click the top button, and then a dialog appears telling us the timeline was added
to the Export queue.
If you want, you can Continue Compositing and add more timelines to the queue and render
them all at once, or, click the Go To Export button to complete the export.
This takes us to the Export screen, where our timeline is already listed in the Export
queue.
You can click the Output to set where the file will be saved, and what name it will
use.
And you can select the preset that will be used to encode the file as well.
There are lots of presets over on the right, and you can create your own if you wish.
The default preset will be different depending if you are using Windows or a Mac, but let’s
leave it at whatever default you have, and click Start Exporting, here at the bottom.
And we are done!
Let it do its thing, it will notify you when the export is completed, and then you can
watch the video file.
Thanks very much for watching this tutorial, and I hope you learned something.
Do check out our other Westworld to Yuma tutorials as well, to learn even more about Hitfilm
Express 2017.