Hey guys Yannick here for Cinecom.net
and welcome back to Copycat Friday.
As you know,
the whole world is on lockdown,
and
we need some super heroes to save us.
And that's where you come in.
We are going to give you superpowers today.
WELCOME TO SUPER POWER COPYCAT!!
And for this week's effect, we got the inspiration from the Fantastic Four,
more specific from Mr. Fantastic.
After his scientific mission and cosmic disaster
he gained some awesome superpowers in the form of being elastic.
He's able to stretch his body to incredible lengths and shapes.
And this stretch effect is going to be the superpower of today, which we will be making in After Effects.
Now,
what do we need for the shot?
Well, believe it or not, you don't need a green screen shot.
What we do need is an empty shot from a tripod
and the harder part where we are going to work with a smooth hard cut.
So make a shot where your actor does a reach movement,
then let him stand super still while someone gives him the object he tries to grab,
and after that let them act like he grabbed it with force.
These two we will combine with a simple cut,
so make sure that your actors stands super still.
Otherwise, we have a jump cut.
Not something we want, we want it smooth.
And that's it for the footage we need.
Now talking about things we need,
our sponsor Storyblocks Video is a must-have filmmaking tool.
It's our go-to stock library where we always find the things we need.
They have a vast collection of Stockclips that vary from HD to 4k.
And with their premade collections you can easily find a bundle of stock clips in the theme you want.
Super easy and talking about easy,
their After Effects templates are so simple to customize it's almost unbelievable.
And with the wide variety of styles, you will definitely find something that suits your needs.
And now you're probably thinking
"That sounds super good Yannick,
but also expensive."
Well, no.
With Storyblocks Video you get an unlimited amount of downloads for one single price per year.
So if you want to start downloading right away, go to the first link in the description below.
Ok, now you can start with post-production,
so open up After Effects.
The first thing we are going to do is place the empty background as the bottom layer.
Then take your actor's clip and look for the part where he does the grab movement.
Place that clip on top of the empty background.
Next, look for the part where your actor already has the object and pretends to grab it.
Also drag that to your comp,
but place it behind the first clip of the actor.
Now if your actor stood really still like I mentioned before,
you now have a smooth cut between the two clips.
The only thing that jumps now is the object popping up,
but this we will fix later.
However, if you do still have a little jumper from your actor, you can reshoot it
or if it's a small difference you can fix it with the liquify tool,
just look for the part of the body that jumps and with the liquify tool you can adjust it to match the other shot.
Of course, animate the liquify back to normal over some time.
Ok, now that everything is smooth, let's start with the elastic arms.
First thing you need to do is duplicate the first actor's clip and name that arm.
Now look for the point where your actor's arm is completely stretched out.
Here you can right click on the arm, go to time and choose freeze frame.
Now the next step is creating a detailed mask around the arm,
just like this one here.
Of course feather it little.
Next up we will shorten the arm clip a bunch.
Look for the point where the actor's arm becomes visible when doing the grab movement,
here our new arm clip will start.
Now for the fun part,
the stretching.
Take the puppet position pin tool and let's place some points on the arm layer.
Start with three pin points on the start of the arm,
then three more a little bit to the right and so on.
We went for 15 points,
which is perfect for having contol over the stretch rate.
Now as you can see in the puppet tool properties, it already made keyframes.
So if we now go to the end of the arm layer, we can move the puppet pin points to the right,
stretch the arm towards the object and immediately animate the effect.
Boom!
We have an elastic arm.
However,
there are still a few things we need to do.
One of those things is removing the underlying arm of the original clip.
Draw a mask on the original clip,
this can be a simple rectangle around the arm.
Now set the mask options from add to subtract,
feather it a little and enable the animation for the mask path.
Then on the start of the arm clip we will place the mask off screen
and if we go one frame further in time, we place it back on the arm.
Voilà,
now the arm is removed.
Next up is making sure that the arm follows the small movements of the actor,
so that means tracking the shot.
First create a null object and call it tracking first arm.
Now select the actor's clip on the spot where he starts to grab and go to the tracker panel.
Here choose track motion and place your only tracker on the sleeve of the t-shirt.
Press analyze forward and let After Effects do its thing.
It's only a few frames that we need so it will be done quickly.
Click on add a target and set the null object to target.
Hit apply and now we can parent the arm clip to the null object.
Now if you have done this correctly, you will have an elastic arm.
For half of the clip anyways.
For the second half you will need to do exactly the same,
so I'm going a bit faster now.
Speed up the music!
Duplicate the second actor's clip and name it arm 2.
In the beginning freeze-frame the arm 2 layer,
again make a mask around the arm and also around the object he is holding.
Next up is the puppet tool.
Set the playhead five frames further than the beginning of the arm 2 layer
and start placing your 15 pin points.
Now shorten the arm 2 layer to that point and go back to the beginning of the arm 2 layer.
Here stretch the arm again to the same point as the previous arm.
The puppet tool will automatically create keyframes like before.
The next step is to remove the underlaying arm.
Create a mask on the second actor's clip
and animate it off screen when your arm two clip ends.
Ok, let's do some tracking.
Select the second actor's clip and start tracking.
Add the tracking data to the new null object and parent your arm 2 layer to that null object.
And last, don't forget to enable the motion blur for both arm layers.
Hey guys, you know I'm a huge fan of superheroes, right?
Well, I've been thinking and maybe we should start our own Cinecom Superhero Team.
What do you mean?
We don't even have superpowers.
Well, I kind of slipped something in our drinks the other day.
What?
Ok, ok. Look.
Hey Yannick, catch.
Whoopsie.
And that was the superpower of today's Copycat.
Now to finish it all with your favorite segment,
Yannick's Fun Fact Fountain!
Did you know that there are people with real-life superpowers?
Well, apparently some people have super strong bones that just don't break,
or ultra-endurance and decide to run 350 miles in 80 hours.
That's nothing.
I do that every four days.
Anyways, what real superpower would you want?
Let me know in the comments.
And that was it for today guys,
I hope you learned something new today.
Thank you so much for watching, thank you Storyblocks Video for the support.
And like always...
Stay creative!
𝅘𝅥𝅮 Say my name, say my name 𝅘𝅥𝅮
𝅘𝅥𝅮 When no one is around you, say baby I love you 𝅘𝅥𝅮
𝅘𝅥𝅮 Ain't no fun and games 𝅘𝅥𝅮
𝅘𝅥𝅮 Say my name say my name 𝅘𝅥𝅮
𝅘𝅥𝅮 Acting kinda shady, ain't calling me baby 𝅘𝅥𝅮
𝅘𝅥𝅮 Why'd you say my name 𝅘𝅥𝅮
𝅘𝅥𝅮 Why'd you don't say my name? 𝅘𝅥𝅮