Today we’re taking a look at how to recreate the title sequence from the Godzilla: King
of the Monsters trailer. You can find the project file link in the description, so let’s
go ahead and get started.
Let’s start by creating a new composite shot, a new Plane and then adding a Radial
Gradient effect. Increase the Radius to make it bigger and lower it in the frame. Set both
colors to a medium gray. The purpose of this plane is to give the bottom of the frame some
light, so you might need to come back and tweak it later to get it to blend with everything
else we’re going to add.
Bring the Particle Simulator effect down into the timeline. In the Controls panel, drop
down the Emitter Shape properties and change it to Quad. This means that the particles
can appear anywhere inside this 2D box. Because I want the particles to start below the screen,
I’ll move the position of the Quad down. Increase the Width to cover the frame.
Now change the Trajectory to Cone. This makes the particles move in one direction. Set the
Z Rotation to -90 to have them moving up. Under General, decrease the Time Shift to
have the particles start before the shot begins.
Search for Life in the bar up top and increase both sliders to make the particles last longer.
Under Appearance, change the Texture Source to Built In. To stop the particles from popping
in and out, select the System and come up to the Lifetime panel. You can activate this
panel from the View menu.
Select Alpha, change the Type to Gradient, and add a black point at the beginning and
end, which represents fully transparent. Let’s add some variation to the particles in Scale
and Texture Angle per Second, which causes them to rotate. Set the Color to a dark gray.
Duplicate the Particle System. This simulation will use the same Shape and Trajectory as
the first, but we can change the appearance to give it a different texture. Under General,
change the Seed to generate a different simulation. Set the texture to Fire Ferocity 3. Lower
the Particles Per Second so that there are less of these throughout the scene.
To add some more movement, I’ll create a new Force by clicking the plus. Change the
Shape to Cuboid and the Type to Turbulence. I’ll increase the size of the shape a bit,
then place it in my scene. When the particles hit this space, they’ll be thrown off course.
I’ll lower the Strength of the Turbulence so that they’re not so affected. Then duplicate
the Force and place them in different areas. These help add some more dynamic movement
to the simulation.
I’ll use the Curves effect on a new Grade layer to turn the smoke blue. First, go into
the Red channel and drop that down. Then in the Green channel, drop the shadows as well
but give it a slight boost in the highlights. Depending on the shade you’re going for,
you might want to then go into the Blue channel and raise that up a bit.
Next I’ll bring in a Japanese text image - I made this by tracing around the text from
the trailer. Right click and set the Blend to Overlay and add a Diffuse effect to help
soften the appearance.
Now we can create the titles. Go to New Layer, Text. Make sure you have the text tool selected,
and type Godzilla. I’ll switch it over to the Impact font in the Text panel, as well
as space out the letters a bit more. In the Transform properties for the title, unlink
the Scale property and increase the Y scale to 125%, to stretch it vertically.
Drop on the Fill Color effect. I’ll change the color to this sort of oceany green. Next,
an Inner Glow effect. This effect is only available in HitFilm Pro. I’ll set the color
to a more cyan blue, and play with the Size and Spread to get it to match the trailer.
Do the same process to get the subtitle. Instead of stretching this title vertically, I squashed
it by setting the Y scale to 75%. To get the text to appear one word at a time, come up
and select the Rectangular Mask tool. Draw a shape around the whole title. In the Controls
panel, drop down the settings for the Mask Transform.
Move your playhead to the beginning and activate keyframes for Position. Adjust the mask so
that the text is no longer visible. Now move the playhead forward a few seconds, and shift
the mask to reveal one word at a time. A keyframe will automatically be created when you change
the Position of the mask. Once finished, you’ll see that the text is being gradually revealed.
Highlight all of the keyframes in the timeline and change the interpolation type to Constant.
This will cause them to be stamped in.
To get the ash, let’s duplicate the smoke particle simulator from earlier and place
it on top. In the Controls panel, delete the forces and the second Particle System. In
the Appearance section, change the color to black. Lower the Scale under Movement and
increase the Particles per Second under General. Change the Trajectory to Random. Lower the
Speed if necessary.
The embers are a duplicate of this Particle Simulator, with a lowered Particles per Second
property, a brighter color, and a Glow effect.
The final Grade involved a Curves effect to add contrast, a Vignette to darken the edges,
and a Letterbox effect. I also added a Bleach Bypass effect. If you’re using Express and
don’t have this, you can get the same result by adding the Hue, Saturation and Lightness
effect onto another Grade layer. Lower the Master Saturation to -100, then set the Blend
of the Grade to Overlay.
A big part of this title is the heat distortion. Let’s add that effect on as well. In the
settings, increase the Scale so that the ripples are bigger. Lower the Distortion and the Diffusion
controls so that the title isn’t completely affected.
We did a recreation of the HALO Jump scene from the 2014 Godzilla film a while back,
as well as a few tutorials, and you can find them all here. Let me know if you have any
questions and I’ll see you all in the next video.