Feb 23, 2018 CrumplePop Overlight: A lens flare and light leak texture plugin that makes it easy to apply washed-out glows and lens flares to footage. CrumplePop Grain 16: Using real 16mm film grain, add this effect to footage for the beautiful texture of authentic film. VHS: Gives modern footage the classic look, color and distortion of old videotape.
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Table of contents.IntroductionLast week I was watching the mountain climbing documentary, Meru, and there's a section in the film where they're doing a flashback sequence about Mugs Stump, a climber who was killed several years ago. Jon Krakauer, most notably known as the writer of Into Thin Air, a book about the Mt.
Everest disaster, was in the film, too. They used still photos in this section of the film, with Ken Burns moves on photos, and also a lot of light leaks and texture. This may have been the best example of light leaks I've seen used in a film.
The effect was noticeable but worked so well with the photos. I emailed Jimmy Chin, professional mountain climber and director of Meru, to get permission to use the clip on the site.
I immediately received an out of office response and he's away for the full month of May, hopefully on a new vertical conquest in some exotic location. After a few days, I did hear back from one of his staff, though. Denied, but very politely. It was worth a shot. See the film! It's on Netflix.What are light leaksSo, light leaks Light leaks happen when a little bit of light enters the container that holds the film. This area should be completely sealed so no light can enter, but sometimes small holes or cracks allow light to come into this area, exposing the film.
My first experience with light leaks was in November 1997 when I went to Scotland. I had a 35mm Kodak camera that I kept popping open and exposing my film. I put Scotch tape on the back cover but it didn't help as much as I would have liked. I have about 6 good photos from that entire trip. Most of the photos are plagued with light leaks.
Maybe I was just ahead of my time because now people purposely use apps to add light leaks to their vacation photos. Have light leaks as a feature!Most of the time with video is used as a stylistic technique to lend some interest to a shot, or in the case of Meru, to add life to still imagery. There are several plug-ins, tools, and stock footage elements for video that allow users to add light leaks to otherwise pristine footage. I spoke with several plug-in developers and others in the industry about light leaks to get some more information.Light Leaks can also be used over a transition, to cover an edit.Light Leak and Lens Whacking ExamplesJosie PhillipsAnd here's a slightly violent message about staying in school and not being a slacker.Back in the early 90's, when music videos still had some relevance, there were loads of shoe gaze and indie bands with light leaks all over their videos. The problem is that many of those examples on YouTube were ripped from VHS and are low quality. Here's a pretty famous example that uses light leak transitions between shots. This works so well and looks so natural because of the bright stage lights.Light leaks are often seen in flashback scenes or dream sequences in films and the look is utilized beautifully in wedding videos.and travel videos. Here's Kia Ora!
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For New Zealand.Adding Light Leaks and Lens Whacking Effects in PostGenArts Sapphire SLightLeakBrian Fox, Product Manager and creative Director for Sapphire visual effects, tells me that “light leaks are difficult effects to emulate, and it works well to take existing light leak footage.” He told me about how his general practice in the past has been to take SD footage of light leaks and apply an additive blend mode, then scale it all up. Of course, Brian works for GenArts and they now have a killer SLightLeak plug-in that uses actual light leak footage, but allowing it to be modified and individualized for each shot. “GenArts gives full control over the elements unlike stock footage,” says Brian. Sapphire LightLeaks are pre-animated and the customization works off of speed parameter. Randomness is built in.
Speed and randomness are combined to give a completely custom look. Brian explained that there are three huge lens flares that are the lights and each can have the speed, color, etc. Modified.One other added feature is that Sapphire includes, Brian explains, “a funky organic texture that we overlay over the light so it gives a funky grain”. This is exactly what I saw in Meru and I'm now wondering if they used Sapphire SLightLeak in post production. To see the texture, just move the light around and look at the whole light. That texture, a noise pattern, is in there.”I asked Brian what type of footage works best for light leaks and he said to use Footage with a lot of range, “Anything with high contrast works. Anything dark won’t work as well. Screen mode, Add mode, and Leaks Only mode are all options.
An additive key or screen key will work well with the light areas of the footage.”This is the Effect Controls in Premiere Pro for Sapphire SLightLeak.This is Presets Browser in Sapphire for SLightLeak.Here's an example I put together after a webinar.
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