New Project : Boat Attack FX, a special effects video

Hi everyone,
                    I'm a bit excited because I just finished a short video I that I've been working on for quite some time now (about 4 hours). It was some kind of initiation to the awesome world of special effects, masking, point tracking and sound effects.


First, the video followed by a special effects breakdown at the end :



SONG : RJD2 - Someones second Kiss

This video was created using the following programs and material :

Adobe After Effects CS5
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
Action Essential 2
After Effects Plugin - Colorista

So... about the making of : I started with a short clip made with a HDV cam near the Saint-Laurent River in Sorel-Tracy of a man in a small boat. Then I applied very roughly the effects I wanted around the time I wanted them to happen. From there I had to mask every small detail in order to make the picture realism (for example, the water from the explosions had be behind the man).

 I also needed to do some point-tracking of the shore in the background in order to create the illusion that those explosions actually happened in the water. The same is true for the effects and explosions on the boat itself. The actual camera itself wasn't really stable so I needed to compensate for these movement with the effects overlay.


I then proceeded to add sound to my project. I found some template and example online and I played with them in Adobe Audition. I had to synchronize them with the actual effects in a believable way. The last detail I added was a brutal camera shake when the big explosion occurred. This "camera shake" was actually software generated. I used the effect "Wiggle" in after effects. The first render came right after that and was one of the most hardware taxing thing I've ever done (It took 5 hours to render this 13s HD scene with motion blur).


After that, I successively applied two colors correction filter in order to "seal" the effect and make it blend in the picture.

I hope you like the result ! Why don't you try making something like this yourself ? It's a lottt of fun !


Comments and questions are more than welcome.