This image spot for Fox Classics channel won the Silver Award for Best On-Air Ident Design (In-House) and was top three in the Best Television Image Promo category at the 2006 Promax|BDA Awards in Sydney. The entire spot was created in After Effects. The footage was treated using a combination of Levels, Gaussian Blur, Tinderbox 3’s Find Edges and Silk effects. I rotoscoped each actor at 5fps and used the Time Blend effect to create the echo. Some of the backgrounds are stock images, but most are from the actual movies. I took a bunch of frames and cloned them together in Photoshop to create clean plates. I then placed the recreated scene on the front of a cube behind the actor in 3D space. It’s pretty effective, especially with the Robert Redford shot where he looks as if he’s walking out of the café door and the My Fair Lady dancing shot. I particularly like the Planet of the Apes shot where the water wraps around Charlton Heston as he kneels in the sand.
Twitter Updates
The Foundry has released 3D Camera Tracker and Kronos, two exciting new plug-ins for Adobe After Effects.
Alexander of Amateurmedia.net has created a stylish new font named Typograph Pro. Also check some of the great usage examples created within Cinema 4D.
Red Giant Software has released Colorista 2, with some exciting new features and improvements. Use motionworks10 for a 1o% discount.
Fontfeed.com has an excellent column “Screenfonts” which discusses the use of fonts in movie posters.
Industrial Light and Magic has a new site. It’s quite amazing just how many productions ILM has been involved in.
Urban Dirty has terrific free grunge stock images and also provides color themes for various images with a downloadable .ASE file. You can import the .ASE file into After Effects using Swatch You Want.
19 Responses to this post
March 7, 2006 at 7:21 am |
Great Jobs JD. very nice video. I really appreciate it. Having idea to rotoscope each actor and to place them in a front of a cube in the 3d space of after effect require long time and advanced skill to manupulate the camera and the null object. i really appreciate all your jobs and this one for the simplicity of color and the environement. very nice and congratulation one once again for your great creativity sense.
March 7, 2006 at 9:56 am |
Very nice video indeed. I like the rotoscopes with the cubes behind. Nice colors. Everythings nice. Congrats. Tielman
March 8, 2006 at 7:06 pm |
Really really sweet looking spot. Very effective technique, a new twist on a good idea. Keepin it fresh. Thanks for sharing, you are a stalwart in the community…cheers mate
March 23, 2006 at 6:54 pm |
That is great JD, you make me want to learn more about after effects. What i find is that we i do stuff in AE it just takes to long. Any tips in how to increase my work flow??
March 24, 2006 at 5:22 am |
Excellent job!! You are a real inspiration, JD.
Do you have a tutorial somewhere on how to do this? I would love to be able to do this for creative wedding effects!
Thanks again, Greg
March 24, 2006 at 6:26 am |
Glad you like the spot. I’ve just written an article on how I did it for Creative Cow’s new Magazine being released this April. That includes some tips on workflow. My training DVD will also have various workflow tips – when it’s released.
April 28, 2006 at 11:54 am |
Killer!! I could say more, but that would just take away from it. Love your work.
May 3, 2006 at 8:50 pm |
Nice work with this, very slick.
What is the soundtrack that is being run over this ???? It fits seamlessly.
May 3, 2006 at 9:05 pm |
Thanks Mark, the song is called “the day brings” by Brad. I cut the base vision to the music so it would fit seamlessly.
JD
August 9, 2007 at 10:16 am |
From Colombia … lovely work nothing else to say.
August 21, 2007 at 6:52 pm |
I´m a motion designer from Colombia. Your work is inspiration to me. Thanks.
January 18, 2008 at 7:05 pm |
John you are my inspirer.. Wonderful job.
October 15, 2009 at 8:17 pm |
Hi John ..Great Stuff!! ..pity Burt Lancasters hat was lost at the top of frame in the source.. Any reason for the orange theme?
October 15, 2009 at 11:49 pm |
Hi Robbo, interestingly that show was a last moment replacement for a shot from The Birds that wasn’t working. I left the hat so that all the shots had the same dimensions. Best wishes, John.
February 13, 2010 at 7:35 am |
hey john…i love your work and your insightfulness just jazzes me..is it possible to get your workshop material by mail order in africa…where i live my internet link is crap and i reealy need to learn some of the award winning stuff you have,please reply
February 14, 2010 at 3:04 pm |
Hi Patrick, anywhere you could go to get a faster connection? We don’t send out training via mail… Best wishes, John.
May 3, 2010 at 4:15 am |
Hi John,
I come back to this design creation every few months or so. What excellent design work you did and do. Thanks for the continuing inspiration.
May 3, 2010 at 5:37 pm |
Thanks Ken, it’s a favourite of mine too
. Best wishes, John.
Trackbacks