So here we go. My very first tutorial on timshim.com. Enjoy.

This shot was captured on one of them new Sony HC-1 HDV camcorders which are small but pack quite a wallop in terms of resolution. We were recording at full 1080i so the picture resolution was way up there. I had to crop and resize the footage to SD rez before getting jiggy with it.

Requirements: Adobe After Effects, Trapcode Particular, RealViz Retimer (Optional)

The shot was imported into AE as TGA sequences. Why, you ask? No reason, you could import it in any recognizable format but I like working with TGA sequences. Merely preference, I suppose. But I also like that TGAs support 16-bit color space (and more but AE 6.5 doesn't support floats) for color correction purposes.

Step 1. Slow Mo

The original clip was over before you knew it. So to enhance the actual FX, I needed to slow the footage down a bit - by about 20%. I used RealViz Retimer for real optical flow slow-mo. Expensive on render times but was worth it. Had to deal with some motion artifacting by giving the clip some motion blur.

Step 2. Track the Finger

AE's built in tracker is very good, me thinks. Though I did use some bright colored paper to mark STM's finger when we were shooting, it didn't read too well and I ended up keyframing the position of the finger manually which wasn't too bad since the clip was only a few seconds long. Copy all the keyframes and move on to Step 3.

Step 3. Painting on Air

Kick up Trapcode Particular, one of the coolest plugins for AE ever built. Also one of the most overused along with Trapcode Shine in the TV Broadcast industry.

Create a new Solid object on top of the footage and attach the Trapcode Particular effect on it.

Remember them keyframes I asked you to copy from Step 2? Yea, well now you just paste it into the 'Position XY' (or as Trapcode calls it 'Postition XY') attribute of Particular and you're done - the effect should follow the position of STM's finger. The default effect are merely just particles flying all over the place so now to tweak the look.

Hard to explain all the settings involved but the final effect was tweaked from one of the Animation Presets (t_FireStarter) that came with Trapcode Particular. Here's a screenshot of the plugin settings.

(Sorry. I deleted the working AE file for this project to make space for another project. Hard disk is running out of space. Therefore, sad to say, no screenshot of the Particular thingy I was supposed to put up. If you're really interested, email me. If enough people put up a request, I may just have to re-create the effect to appease the masses.)

Step 4. There is no Step 4

Tweak colors of footage for a Bleached Bypass look to make the deep red of finger paint stand out like a sore thumb, no pun intended. Simple, no? Render away.

Just in case you haven't seen the clip and are too lazy to scroll all the way back up to click on the link, here it is again so thank me for saving some miliseconds of your life. ;)

Check it out!