Hey guys,
Yannick here for Cinecom.net,
the place where we make effects from movies and music videos
easy.
Like you all know,
we love Zach King and all of his editing magic.
He really takes filmmaking to the next level,
while making it fun.
So occasionally, he blows our mind with his magic.
And then, you have another creator,
Kevin Parry.
Well, recently he destroyed my mind with this endless book loop.
I think I stare it for like
10 minutes
without finding any cut.
Where is the cut?
But I succeeded by playing it frame by frame.
So Kevin Parry,
I tip my hat to you.
Job well done.
Now like you can imagine, creating such a loop isn't easy,
and that's where we come in.
In this video we will show you some tricks that will make it easier and possible for anyone to recreate this.
The first step: have a book.
Damn we are in depth.
To avoid jump cuts in your loop,
try to find a clean book without any prints on it.
Especially the spine needs to be empty.
Then, if you want you can also put something on one side of the book cover
as a reference for the audience.
This way they will know the book span around
and will also create the same illusion as Kevin Parry has.
But if you would now rotate the book and loop it,
you'll see your arms and the book jump around, creating a jump cut.
Solution: drill a hole.
Then put a rod through the hole and start rotating.
With the rod against your chest
you will rotate around one point and more steady.
Thus, making everything easier to match.
Next up,
sit
really still.
Like, really.
And practice the movements.
I know it's silly, but your movement or your sitting still
needs to be spot on.
Even so good that without any post-production work the loop will almost look finished.
But I warn you,
you probably are going to need a new hard drive due to all the reshoots you are going to do.
Sorry about that.
To help you with this movements
we have a third tip,
use a reference point to align your book with.
For instance,
we use the leg of our tripod with some tape on it.
Then before and after your turn
you can easily align the book with it.
And yes,
you can close one eye to help you align
because in post-production we will give you a new face.
Something else you can do to make it easier,
make sure that your t-shirt doesn't have any creases.
Of course this is impossible because you aren't wearing a box,
but try to keep them at a minimum.
Now after you are done with spinning your book around,
keep super still and take your new face shot.
Just let the camera roll and portray two emotions with your face.
Maintain them for a while so that you have some bleed.
Oh yeah,
almost forgot.
Also try to use a clean background.
We first used a background with text on.
Not the best decision.
Due to the text, we had little room to adjust the position of the head.
So, make it yourself easy and use a clean background
or a blown out window like Kevin Parry.
And a last thing to make it yourself easy,
this super cozy back support.
Do you have some back pain?
Well, this will make it worse.
But it will also help you with sitting super still.
Especially for your head, because this tends to move a lot.
Boom! The shooting is done, now it's time for post-production.
First, out of your thousand shots
pick the best one.
Let that shot start with you rotating the book,
and end with, again, rotating the book.
Now duplicate the clip one time and place it next to the original clip.
Lower the opacity of the top layer
to around 50%
and with nudging the clip you can match them both.
Once they are matched,
trim the second clip to that point.
And you can even trim one extra frame.
This will keep the rotating movement smooth.
Now if you play that, you already have a loop.
Not a smooth one,
but it's already close due to the steps I explained before.
Now, let's make it super smooth.
Look for the liquify effect in the effects library,
and drag that to your second clip.
Within the effects controls panel
take the smudge tool.
Now enable the animation for the distortion mesh
and drag that keyframe ten frames to the right.
On the start of the second clip
you can now distort the clip to match the original one.
Because the second clip is still at 50% opacity,
you can see right through it and easily smudge everything.
Keep doing this until you have super matching two clips.
Now set the opacity back to 100
and if you go further in time to the second keyframe,
you see that the clip distorts back to normal.
Now you have created a smooth transition between the two clips.
But we are not there yet.
The next step is to make the loop infinite.
Something very crucial.
Very important.
Focus on the next part.
Duplicate the second clip and place it over the first clip.
Again, match the two clips on a random point.
Then you can trim the new duplicates so that it ends on the same point as the first clip.
Now delete both previous clips and replace them with the new duplicate
two times.
This will make the beginning and the end the same for both clips,
creating an endless loop.
Getting closer guys.
Let's change the face now.
The first thing you need to do is pre-comp the first clip.
Then next up is reverse stabilize the pre-comp.
I'm not going to go in detail about this step
because we have a super awesome tutorial about reverse stabilization,
which you can find in the description
below.
So now that the clip is stabilized,
let's bring in the new face.
The thing you now need to do is match the reactions to the actions of the book.
The first one is easy,
just place it on the right spot.
Now he becomes angry by seeing the book,
but when closing the book he needs to become normal again.
Let your talent hold this angry face for 20 frames or so,
and then make a cut.
Duplicate that clip and right click on it.
Go to time and here you can click on the time-reverse layer.
Now drag that reverse layer to the right and match the emotion switch with the closing of the book.
Okay, if you then have a gap between the two clips,
don't worry.
Just duplicate the first one again and make it longer.
Then place the playhead where the first clip ends,
right click, go to time and choose freeze frame.
Then make the clip as long as the gap.
Now that we have our emotions in place,
let's integrate the face with the rest.
Select all clips and pre-comp them.
Then select the pre-comp and stabilize it.
In the tracker panel, choose warp stabilize
and let After Effects do its thing.
Once done, go into the effects controls
and under the advanced tab, enable show track points.
Now delete all the track points, except for the ones on the face.
Do that step every ten frames.
Then set the result to no motion
and the method to position.
Voilà!
You have a non moving head.
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Let's continue with the non-moving head.
Take the pen tool and draw a rough mask around your talent's face,
then place it on the right spot
and
that's really it.
Now select both the pre-comps,
the one from your face and the original clip.
Again, pre-comp them to one clip
and on this new pre-comp we are going to reintroduce the motion of a reverse stabilizing effect.
Leaving us with a clip without borders.
Then delete the second clip in your timeline
and replace it with a duplicate of the new pre-comp layer.
And if you want, you can always use some time remapping
to make the motion of the rotation more smooth.
That will give you this super infinite loop effect.
And that was it for today, guys.
Except for...
Yannick's Fun Fact Fountain!
Did you know that Kevin Parry is a renowned
stop-motion artist?
He worked on one of my favorite animation movies,
Kubo and the Two Strings,
which got nominated for two Oscars in 2017.
But what is your favorite animation movie?
Let us know in the comments below.
Anyways, thank you so much for watching.
Thank you Storyblocks Video for the support.
And like always...
Stay creative!
Super clapping.