this video is sponsored by Storyblocks hey what's up ladies and gentlemen
I'm Ignace Aleya and today we're going back to the future
all right what's up everyone my ribs are finally healed from my terrible and
stupid electronic skateboard accident
but now I feel great so let's get started so in today's video I'll be
showing you how I created the Back to the Future teleport effect from the
awesome movie series Back to the Future of course and some of you might already
have seen his effect in a little short I've made a while ago where I mixed it
in with some stranger things effect which were really cool if you haven't
seen that video be sure to check it out with link in the description below all
right so for this example I had the luxury to work on actual DeLorean
footage which you can also find on story blocks if you have the subscription as
you could see in the preview I didn't shoot anything myself I was able to edit
everything with the footage I found on story blocks story blocks is a great
website for stock video clips motion graphics templates backgrounds and more
you can download from the unlimited library once you've set up a
subscription and you are allowed to use everything commercially it's a great
place to download extra high end video clips if you don't have the option to
shoot something on location due to budget yourself maybe you would like a
beautiful aerial shot but you don't have a drone or licensing to shoot with your
drone then you can easily find amazing aerials also on their website it's also
a great way on adding some amazing b-roll on top of your own videos to
enhance the production value and as you've seen in the example you can now
create short films without filming anything if you would like to learn more
about story blogs be sure to click on the link in the description below so for
this video you won't need any third-party plugins
everything is done inside of Adobe After Effects all the footage dough that I
will be using in this tutorial is from story blocks the DeLorean footage the
explosion the fire at the end of the clip and so on so I will be using these
kind of clips but feel free to use whatever you want you can even film your
own car back to the future alright let's get started the first thing I did was
import the clips of course in Adobe After Effects and I changed my project
settings from 8 bits to 32 bits you can do that right here I most often prefer
to set up as it gives me more control over the course and more beautiful glows
and we all those gloves don't greet so bring your
shop into a new composition by dragging it to a new composition icon next
duplicate your shop and go to the beginning where you don't see the car
here we want to right click time and freeze-frame this is going to be our
clean plate so we want to cut off the car at the end and then disappears in
nothing so we have a clean plate to work with next make sure that your animated
shop is the actual top layer otherwise you won't see anything moving and then
trim it until you want the car to disappear next I will apply the brand
new mocha ae effect which is really cool to track the rear lights click on the
mocha logo this will open the mocha window and here I want to see my rear
light clearly then use the x-plane tool to make a selection of my rear light and
track it forward adjust where needed you can use a zoom and pan tool to move
around once you've done that go to the beginning of your track and now track it
backwards so you have the entire clipped track if you've done that again go to
your excellent tool for the second light and repeat the exact same process then
once you're done close this window and it will ask you to save it click Save
now we want to duplicate our layer and head to the mocha effect open the mat
step and here we can click on create ae masks this will create a mask around
your taillights of the car on your new layer here I will click F on the
keyboard with layer selected and this will allow me to add some feather for
both masks so we can blend it in a little bit better then I like to change
the blending mode to a screen or ad to brighten it up immediately then next we
can add it a little bit more by going to court correction and apply a curves
effect brighten this up as well then brighten up the rest and maybe decrease
the blues to really get those intense red colors this will give us the effect
like the taillights are lighting up now I want to make the lights look like they
are consuming energy like a charged up for the teleportation so we will make
them flicker this is actually very easy we will hit T on the keyboard this will
bring up the opacity and then we want to create a keyframe for the opacity and
set the value to zero somewhere where you would like to start the charge then
with the page down key on your keyboard you will move forward one frame then
increase the opacity a bit something like 30
five and then one frame forward bring it back to zero then repeat this process
until you want to finish and then leave a few frames in between and bring the
opacity to fully 100% this will give us this kind of effect next I want to apply
the blur CC radial fast blur effect to my taillights here I want to place a
radial blur in the center between my lights and change a zoom to brightest
increase value a bit and duplicate the entire layer if you want to increase the
effect intensity now we have some cool charging lights next we are going to
create the Lightning create a new black solid layer and apply the advanced
lightning effect the first thing I like to do here is go into the globe settings
and bring down the opacity to zero I don't really like how the standard glow
looks so we're going to do that later on next you can play around with the
lightning settings and fill you'd like them and then I'm going to apply some
simple expressions to flicker the Lightning on and off first I'll go into
the course settings and I'll click on the stopwatch for the core radius and
here we want to write the expression wiggle open parentheses 7 comma 7 close
parentheses now we go into the core opacity and write exactly the same but a
little bit different values wiggle open parentheses 7 comma 75 close the
parentheses this will change the value randomly seven times a second that's the
first number and then for a value of 75 the second number so if you change that
it will also be different of course so next I also want to animate the
lightning animation this is the conductivity state so here again I want
to all click on the stopwatch and here we are going to write time times 100
this will make a constant animation now simply go to the beginning where you
want the lightning to start and trim your layer set the lightning type to
strike and then click on the stopwatch for the origin and direction of the
lightning and you will see two circles while the effect is selected and these
two circles you can actually move around and if you're going to do it is each
frame you're going to animate them because you already clicked on the
stopwatch so move these around and each time move one frame forward and change
the location of where you the Lightning hits this all around the
car repeat this process until the end or the car is teleported once you have done
all of this break up the Lightning and move all the attributes to the new
composition open this composition and apply it solid composite effects to the
Lightning layer and then change a core to black and this will fill the entire
layer with a black color and it's going to work a little bit better with
blending later on then go back to your main composition and apply is simple
Gaussian blur to your Lightning comp layer and increase it quite a bit if you
don't see it any more you can use an exposure effect to increase the
intensity of the blur effect next we want to add a CC composite effect on top
of all these effects and set it to add this will bring our original lightening
back on top so everything that is inside that composition again add Gaussian blur
but this time increase it less than the previous time and again we can use an
exposure effect if we want to increase the intensity of the blur and repeat
this process as much as you'd like we want that kind of glowy look next I want
to add a CC composite again set it to add and blur it slightly then I add a cc
vector blur and increase it slightly this gives a very kind of fluid look I
really like the CC vector blur effect and it kind of gives it a different
style from the original and standard kind of lightening effect but if you
want you can also add one more CC composite effect again turn it to add
and include your original lightening as well so we have a little bit more of
combinations going and play around with all these settings until you are
satisfied and of course at the entire layer to a screen or add blending mode
lastly we want to give the lightening some color to do this I will be using a
plugin but don't worry it's a free one I'm going to be using VC core vibrance
it's an amazing tool from Video Copilot and I will put a link in the description
so you can go ahead and download that they allow you to use it for free but
it's an amazing plugin to give color to grayscale images or videos it really
makes your image very vibrant so pick the color you'd like in my case blue now
we have this effect and we're almost done
if you want to add some more lightning to hit for example the lightning post we
can copy our car footage and paste it in the composition for the lightning bring
it at the bottom and then create a new lightning effect and maybe a few frames
long and make it hit the lightning post again we're going to be using the strike
type lightning before we return to the main composition though we make sure
that you right-click on your footage and make it a guide layer that way you can
see it in decomposition to use it as a reference but once you go back to your
main composition it's not going to be visible anymore so that's a great way to
work in other composition with reference of your original footage in your main
composition if you're still following me great good job then head back to the
main comp now we want to create some reflections on the floor to make it look
a little bit more realistic reflections or everything once we are working with
kind of lightening effects so we're going to create a new blue solid layer
and mascot with an ellipse tool and ellipse kind of straightforward then
feather it a little bit and make a keyframe for the mask path by clicking
and on the keyboard and click on the stopwatch then animate the mask to be in
some kind of right position compared to the Lightning and animate the opacity or
trim your layer to turn it off or lower the intensity when the Lightning is
invisible or less intense then change the blending mode of this layer to add
but still it doesn't look very realistic yet so we're going to duplicate our
clean plate layer and add a tint effect to that to make it black and white then
I'm going to apply a levels effect and bring the white point in and a black
point in a little bit then I will play around with the mid-tone until I get
something like this with a high contrast but still a lot of blacks and a lot of
whites why don't you have that pre comp this layer and move all the attributes
into the new composition name this composition reflection map so as a name
says it's going to be a reference image for our reflection to come true so now
we're going to disable this layer because we don't have to see it now
select your blue solid layer again that we just animate it and apply a compound
blur to it select here the reflection map layer then set this to an invert and
increase value to your preferences and voila this reflection
tell me it doesn't look awesome next I want to add some burn marks after the
car is gone as I'm going to add flames on the ground but it's not going to look
realistic without some kind of burnt marks so to do this we're going to
create a new black solid layer and then again use the ellipse tool to make an
ellipse feather it just a little bit and then apply a rough on edges effect to
that layer and here I want to increase the complexity of the roughen edges then
decrease the sharpness and increase the border a little you also play around
with a scale depends on what you like but just play around and you can get
some interesting burn marks anyway it's not that big of a deal because it's
going to be redder in the distance now we want to make this layer a 3d layer so
enable the 3d option for this layer and if you don't see that option simply hit
f4 on the keyboard then move it to the location of where the car is going by
repositioning and re rotating the entire thing to get the perspective good a
little bit you can use some earlier frames to position it by the cars
perspective and then at the end trimmed layer to only start after the car left
but I just like to see the car as a reference while I'm positioning these
burn marks then duplicate it for the other pirate and also put it into
position now put the burn mark layers below the lightening effect so they
don't come above it and next I'm going to import an explosion clip which I also
found on story blocks during the first part of it I just want the kind of
lingering off effect of this explosion I don't want the intensity of the actual
explosion and then change the blending mode to an ad or screen scale it rotate
it and put it in position when the car left next I'll import the find clip also
from story blocks but it's a slow motion clip so we need to speed it up first
it's super slow motion actually so we'll go and right click on this layer time
time stretch and set it to 25% then i will also right click in my viewport
wildest layer is selected and right click transform horizontal so it
actually fate's in from the other direction because the car is going in
that kind of direction then I'm also going to scale it down make it a 3d
layer put it in position according to the cars perspective and set the
blending mode to a screen going to mask out the starting part as
this was cut off on the original footage so I'll make a mess around it and set it
to subtract feather it just a little bit so we don't see those ugly edges and
then duplicate it again to put it on the position for the other tires next we can
bring in some friends of the lightning being sparks also fun and story blocks
I'm going to import these into the composition setting the blending mode to
add and scale and position them in different places the car the light pole
the end of the clip just be creative and play around a little once you have done
all that we can do some finalization to finish off this clip the most important
part is to make the teleportation look realistic but do this we have to make a
little bit of a warping and camera shake when the teleportation is happening this
will really make it pop and make it feel like a huge strength is rushing through
the sky to do this I will create a new adjustment layer and apply a distort
ripple effect here I want to increase my radius and position it on the
teleportation point then play with the height width and speed to get something
that you like now two frames before we disappear we want to set the height to
zero then create a keyframe and set the value to your preferences then ten
frames to 20 frames for a bit we want to set height back to zero we can also
click on this keyframe and go to keyframe assistance easy ease this will
make it come to a smooth stop you can even open the graph editor and smoothen
out that curve and then lastly I want to add some camera shake this I did by
creating another adjustment layer and apply RTC shake effect this is one of
the effects that comes in our epic transitions back if you don't have that
you can also do it yourself with some position keyframes to make it look like
an earthquake there are plenty of tutorials on how to do that so I won't
be covering that in this video and as I already have this preset I will just use
this one then I'll move the keyframes to that Center keyframe it as the point
where the car left move the first keyframe closer somewhat two frames
before the car left and then leave the last keyframe where it is so it can
linger off the effect and voila we have our Back to the Future teleport that's
it for this tutorial I hope you enjoyed it if you did I would appreciate it if
you would drop a like also subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bow
to stay notified when I new videos and apart from that I hope to
see you guys in the next one goodbye