Before I get started I'd like to give a huge shoutout to Film Riot who are currently holding
a 1 minute Film competition in collaboration with Filmstro.
We are one of the many sponsors of the competition so there are some awesome HitFilm prizes included
for the winners!
If you'd like to learn more about the competition and learn how to enter, click the link in
the description.
And now, it’s over to ghost Oli.
Hey guys, welcome back to another HitFilm tutorial.
This week I’ll be taking over to show you how to create this headless ghost effect.
For this tutorial I will be using HitFilm Express along with the Chroma Key and Lightsword
Ultra Glow effects.
We'll be giving the first 20 people 50% off the VFX: Neon Lights Pack so be sure to click
the link in the description below.
Remember to subscribe and with that, let’s get started.
This tutorial has been inspired by the various versions of the headless horseman you may
have seen in films such as Sleepy Hollow as well as the ghosts from the Harry Potter series,
namely Nearly-headless Nick.
"Nearly headless, how can you be nearly headless?"
"Like this."
To begin, we’ll need some footage.
For this I shot myself on a greenscreen background with a greenscreen suit over my head.
For the second shot I wore the greenscreen suit again but this time with my head on show
and holding my hair up so that it would look like I was suspended by my hair.
I then got a picture of the top I was wearing and finally I got a shot of a clean plate
of the background I wanted to use - keep in mind that this could be anything, I used the
office in this example but why not try a castle or forest at night?
The two greenscreen pieces of footage will be brought together to build the final ghost
effect, head-holding and all.
I'll open up HitFilm and create a new project with the 1080p Full HD @ 25fps Template and
import all of my media.
Bring both greenscreen body shots and collar image into a composite shot and use the Chroma
Key effect to get rid of all the green that we can see.
Set the Pre-Blur to your liking then open up the Matte sub-settings and adjust the Clip
Foreground so the background disappears.
And the softness until the edge looks natural.
The keying can be done using the the Color Difference Key or Hue & RGB Key in Express
but the Chroma Key effect makes it a whole lot easier.
If you weren’t able to get a greenscreen suit to cover your face you could also manually
mask your head off your body.
Watch this tutorial to learn how to animate masks
For the Head layer and the Collar layer I’ll also create a couple of Masks using the Freehand
Mask Tool to ensure they are the only things visible in that layer.
Now we need to begin attaching these layers to each other.
To start I’ll attach the Collar to the Jumper.
On the Jumper layer do a 2-point track on the edges of the existing collar - see Axel’s
motion tracking tutorial for this.
Once this has finished create a Point layer and name it Collar Track.
Now apply the track data to the Collar Track Point layer remembering to select to include
the Rotation.
Make sure the Collar layer is beneath the Jumper layer and adjust the anchor point so
that it sits in the center of the collar before adjusting the position and rotation of the
Collar to make it sit in place on the jumper.
Finally parent the Collar layer to the Collar Track Point layer and it’ll now follow the
jumper around - Depending on how much movement your jumper has, turning on motion blur might
help it blend in better.
We’re now going to attach the head to the hand by following a similar process.
Create another 2-point track on the jumper layer and track either side of the hand in
case there is any rotation.
Create another Point layer called Hand Track and apply the track data, including the rotation,
to this layer.
Change the Head anchor point to sit where the hand would be gripping it and adjust the
Position so that it sits on the hand - Moving the anchor point to the top of the head makes
the rotation more accurate.
Finally, parent the Head to the Hand Track layer and this step is done!
You may have noticed that the head is sitting above the hand, and no masking is going to
fix that nicely so the next step is to create an animated Matte to cover up the hair.
To do this, duplicate the Hand Track Point layer, create a new Plane layer which I’ve
called Hand Plane and use the freehand mask tool to create a hand-shaped plane.
Feather the mask and parent the plane to the duplicate track point.
Right click both these layers and select Create Composite Shot called Hand Matte.
Now, in the Ghost composite turn off the Hand Matte Composite layer which has just been
created from the previous two layers, duplicate the Jumper layer, renaming the new one Hand.
Add the Set Matte effect and set the Source Layer to the Hand Matte Composite shot we
just created - it uses the alpha layer of the masked composite shot to restrict the
jumper layer to just the hand area.
I also spent a little time here keyframing the Rotation property on the Head layer to
make it wiggle as my hand moves, this is an optional step but I thought it helped add
a little realism - Try setting the keyframes to Smooth or Manual
Bezier for more control.
Now it’s time to make a ghost!
Start by selecting the Background image in the Media panel and selecting Make Composite
Shot, I’ll call it Final Composite.
I’ll apply some effects to this layer as I want it to look like it was shot at night
with just a single light left on.
Add the Curves effect, bringing the light areas of the image down to about 75% on the
Y-axis.
Then add a Hue, Saturation & Lightness effect to lower the Saturation to -40 and the Lightness
to -5.
The final effect we need to add is the Vignette effect.
I’ll adjust the settings to fit my scene, Horizontal and Vertical stretch to 1.4, Softness
to 0.90, Curvature to 0.60 and Strength to 0.95.
I’ll also adjust the Vignette Center to -962 x 292 so that the office slowly fades
to black as we get closer to the camera.
Some other tweaks are clearly needed to make this appear darker, we need shadows.
Create a black Plane layer above the Background image and rename it to Shadow.
To this, I’ll add a number of different semi-transparent masks to any areas which
emit light such as the office in the background and the windows and door.
Most masks will need to be set to Add but I’ll add a couple to Subtract shadow from
the areas which would remain lit - you can lower how much the mask takes out by adjusting
the Opacity of that mask.
Now bring the Ghost composite into the Final Composite, above the Background layer.
Some of the techniques here are similar to the force ghost tutorial which Javert made
a while ago and can be found here.
To begin, create a duplicate of the Ghost composite layer and set the blend to overlay
to stop the effect looking too washed out.
Place this under the original and set the Opacity to around 85%.
On the original Ghost composite layer set the Opacity to something lower before applying
effects, mine is set to 27%.
Add a Hue, Saturation & Lightness effect to drop the saturation down to around -50.
Then apply the Lightsword Ultra (Glow Only) effect which is found in the VFX: Neon Lights
Pack and gives us the ghostly glow.
Within the Inner Glow settings lower the width to around 60px, change the color to the color
you want your ghost to be, in my case white, and set the Alpha to around 0.20.
The outer glow allows us to create a cool ghostly outline to the ghost.
I’ll set the Width to 120px, change the color to white, set the Alpha to about 0.25,
and the Falloff to 0.50 and then we can take a look in the distortion settings.
Here you’ll need to increase the amount of Distortion, I’ll set it to 35px and keep
the Type as Heat and Mode as Distort.
Remember to play around with these settings so that you get the look you’re after.
You’ll notice that the areas in front of the light in the Background layer are just
a little too visible, we actually want the opposite to happen here so to counter this
I’ll create a Rectangular Mask around the whole Ghost layer.
I’ll then make two smaller Elliptical Masks where the light is shining through the ghost.
Set these to Subtract and adjust their Opacity to between 60% and 80%.
I want the ghost to show up just a little more, there’s just a little too much of
the background shining through, so to achieve this I’ll duplicate the Background layer,
placing it above the original and apply the Set Matte effect, using the Ghost layer as
the Source.
I’ll then add a slight Blur using the Blur effect set to around 5px.
Finally I need to do a little bit of grading to tie the effect together and help the effect
pop out a little more as it’s currently looking quite flat.
Add a Grade layer to the top of the layer stack.
To this I’ll apply the Curves effect to start with.
I want to increase the contrast but there’s not a lot of white in the frame so I’ll
lower the slider on the X-axis to the halfway point.
Now I’ll make a subtle S shape, increasing the contrast.
Apply the Hue, Saturation & Lightness effect and increase the overall Saturation by just
5, it’s a very tiny change but it all adds something.
To help create a shine around the Ghost I’ll add the Auto Volumetrics effect and tweak
the Light Source property.
I'll lower the Threshold to 0.10 and the Exposure to -8.0.
Finally, add a Diffuse effect to defuse the light within the scene ever so slightly.
I’ll set the Radius to 5.0 and the Opacity to 0.40.
And that’s it!
You now have a headless ghost!
Thanks for watching this week’s tutorial!
If you liked this then why not click the card on screen which will show you how to create
a Ghostbusters Proton stream effect.
If you’d like to see more from me then hit the like button and let me know what you’d
like to see me create next time in the comments down below.
I'll see you all again soon!