vfx How to get some of these effects

gdgross

gdgross

Hi all - newbie video guy here. I'm a musician trying to make content and music vids for my band on the cheap. I'm proficient "enough" in fcpx, but I often struggle because I don't use it frequently enough to remember all the little tricks I learned the last time I used it. Have never used abobe or davinci.

I dig the look of this video:


I see that it's 24fps, but looks like the actual apparent frame rate is 12fps because every adjacent frame is identical.

That part is easy; I can shoot at double speed and slow the frame rate, or just do in FCPX. Or just shoot slower to begin with. Many ways to achieve that lower frame rate depending on what I'm going for.

The other thing I notice is that it seems like sometimes the light balance, or camera setting changes between frames. I can achieve something like this if I shoot a bunch of pictures in sports mode on my sony a6500. As opposed to "movie" mode where it shoots actual video files, but it seems like a laborious way to shoot a whole music video. I would have to string all the pictures together in an external program. Any idea if there's some kind of plugin that achieves this, or some other shortcut?

I also dig the drawn-in animation. Any idea what programs ppl use to do this? Is animation these days as laborious as I imagine; drawing things in frame by frame?

Thanks all, and apologies if I'm asking the equivalent of how to paint a masterpiece in a day with no practice. lol.
Geoff
 
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The light balance, as you say it, changes between shots probably weren't done on purpose in the video.

Most professionals use a light meter to determine the exact degree of exposure and keep it consistent across all shots, and if you don't do that then you'll get little variations naturally. Or you could just do it on purpose by increasing the light, or in editing by tweaking the contrast, etc.. if you really want it to go from darker to lighter, or from washed out to contrast, you do it purposefully with the lighting and color correction.

The best program for that is Da Vinci resolve but there are plugins for color grading in final cut pro you can use.

Re: hand-drawn animation, I can't say as I've never attempted anything like that. I suck at drawing.

The closest tutorial vids I have seen for are not QUITE the same thing:


 
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The 12fps isn't an effect really, it's standard for animation from the old days, and was a neccesity to cut the labor of drawing the animation cells in half, otherwise, studio goes under. You can do this type of animation in procreate, cta 4, but the best program is toonboom harmony.

It's extremely laborious, and difficult to learn and get right. If I had to guess, they probably hired someone to do the work for them.
 
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Thanks guys. I've used some purchased effects to do similar drawn lines to the ones in the bruno mars vid in the past, they worked pretty well, and not too bad of an effort on my part, since I didn't have to hand draw them.

As far as the light goes, you're saying basically tweak it frame by frame via exposure or color correction? (I'm using FCPX)

My wife (and bandmate!) actually does own procreate on her ipad, so perhaps we might look into seeing how to do some simple animations on top of existing videos in there.

PS, i did reach out to the artist that did this video, and yes they hired it out. Also got their contact info and reached out, but haven't heard back from the animator, so we'll see if I'm stuck doing this on my own or not. I'm sure there are other ppl i could hire as well.
 
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gdgross said:
Thanks guys. I've used some purchased effects to do similar drawn lines to the ones in the bruno mars vid in the past, they worked pretty well, and not too bad of an effort on my part, since I didn't have to hand draw them.

As far as the light goes, you're saying basically tweak it frame by frame via exposure or color correction? (I'm using FCPX)

My wife (and bandmate!) actually does own procreate on her ipad, so perhaps we might look into seeing how to do some simple animations on top of existing videos in there.

PS, i did reach out to the artist that did this video, and yes they hired it out. Also got their contact info and reached out, but haven't heard back from the animator, so we'll see if I'm stuck doing this on my own or not. I'm sure there are other ppl i could hire as well.
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No, not frame by frame. Thank god. It's not as tedious as that.

Shot by shot. Mostly you create the look, then copy/paste it to the other shots
Here is an example of pro grading workflow with resolve (a free program if your GPU can run it)

You can do similar stuff in concept with a FCP plugin im sure, but i dont use that program.

The first 8 seconds show the different stages that he uses to change the shot from the base camera shot to something resembling the boys style



Or for the witcher, he has a ton of these, etc...

 
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On the animation end, dependent upon your needs, you might find a solution on stock sites, which often have cartoon elements on alpha channel, meaning you can just drop them into your resolve or fcp timeline and they sort of work. Add a bit of rotoscoping to obscure sections, and you can have a serviceable effect for some things.

Like this service is I think 30 a month, and you can just sub for one month and get what you need going forward with your project.

elements.envato.com

Download 71091 Cartoon Stock Videos - Envato Elements

Download All 71,091 “cartoon” stock videos unlimited times with a single Envato Elements subscription. All from independent designers.
elements.envato.com
 
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I was thinking - on the animation side... i bet the AI tools will be able to do stuff like this for you in just 1 or 2 more years with consumer ready software. personally I wouldn't put a lot of time into learning those effects because it seems so imminent. you could learn stuff like lighting shots and camera movements, etc, and then combine everything youve learned with the AI tools in 2024/2025 and get stuff better than this
 
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You're not wrong, but the really big concern is, will all animation suddenly become valueless forever at the exact moment that happens. I don't want to be intentionally grim, but we all might want to be creative right now, as the future of art, music, writing, and AI are incredibly uncertain. If you really get into it like I have, you can do this with AI now. I just didn't mention it because it's really complicated and a ton of work to get to the starting line, and I'm assuming that the OP doesn't want to get into that quagmire for a music video. My entire floor is just covered with hair that I tore out trying to make a cartoon cat walk across a log.
 
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Nate North said:
You're not wrong, but the really big concern is, will all animation suddenly become valueless forever at the exact moment that happens. I don't want to be intentionally grim, but we all might want to be creative right now, as the future of art, music, writing, and AI are incredibly uncertain. If you really get into it like I have, you can do this with AI now. I just didn't mention it because it's really complicated and a ton of work to get to the starting line, and I'm assuming that the OP doesn't want to get into that quagmire for a music video. My entire floor is just covered with hair that I tore out trying to make a cartoon cat walk across a log.
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thats exactly the OPPOSITE of what I'm suggesting he do..

I'm saying just give about a year or two, and he will be able to draw one single frame of a catapillar and then just ask AI to animate it crawling across a person, and it will be a consumer ready product he can pay for and download and have.

No offense to this guy but I'd guess his art is already valueless (I know all of MINE is) and there's really no point in derailing his thread with a conversation about the future of art vs AI
 
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ok, think I'm going to forestall the real animation for the time being, at least for the next video. I may hire it out for the future, and use some stock animations for now. I did chat with the person that animated the video I linked to above, and as we all suspected it's not cheap, being hand drawn! AI may help, but yeah, if it's easy everyone will be doing it.

(This is all just a vehicle for my music; so whatever schtick I need that's a little bit out to get attention is cool with me - the animation just caught my eye and I thought it was cool, so I imagine other ppl might too.)

I also tried this stutter effect on a clip

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It seems to work well, but I was wondering if there's a way to make it look more "stop motion-y". I would love to have some frames with very slightly different exposure levels or white balance or something, as if I'd taken a series of pictures rather than a video.

Any easy ways to do this?
 
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It's actually really good, and this song deserves to have a video.

I will offer you the following. For $100 dollars, I will make your video and turn it in by tomorrow. I just have to spend a small amount on off site coprocessing, and don't want to go out of pocket. No revisions, sold as is, no refunds, proceed at your own risk. I'll make whatever I feel like, and that's it. If you have 7 grand, we can talk about custom jobs with directions and revisions and tire kicking.

You can trust me or not, makes no difference to me, but I can say that in terms of getting an animator to work on your video for you, it is extremely unlikely that you would ever get a better offer. I won't promise you much, except that it will be the most beautiful and attention grabbing video on your entire youtube channel, which I did scan. It's actually all pretty good. You're doing well man.

Samples of my work are innumerable, but I'd be using the following animation style for this, because I can do it in 6 hours this way, and make it epic enough to want to put my name on it. A part of the deal would be that I'm allowed use on my portfolio. (channel) with attribution and a link to your channel on that video. Obviously you can use it wherever you like, I just don't want copyright strikes for displaying my own work.

Obviously, your video would have much less fire and death in it, lol. Anyway, this isn't a sales pitch, I'm trying to extend a helping hand, so feel free to say no, as that would be easier for me. I just like the song and could get in some reps knocking out a spare video with the GPU rental covered.

This is a video I made a couple days ago with this tech - I work with dozens of animation styles and techniques, but this one is fast, and would allow me to extend an offer at such ridiculously low cost. Acceptance of the deal would also include a provision that you would not be allowed to tell anyone the price, since I don't want to spend time turning down super lowball offers for songs I don't like.


Here's a much more chill video I made for a guy's track but this one is in a much more work intensive system. I just thought it would be helpful if you could see that I create something very different for each project.

 
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Nate North said:
It's actually really good, and this song deserves to have a video.

I will offer you the following. For $100 dollars, I will make your video and turn it in by tomorrow. I just have to spend a small amount on off site coprocessing, and don't want to go out of pocket. No revisions, sold as is, no refunds, proceed at your own risk. I'll make whatever I feel like, and that's it. If you have 7 grand, we can talk about custom jobs with directions and revisions and tire kicking.

You can trust me or not, makes no difference to me, but I can say that in terms of getting an animator to work on your video for you, it is extremely unlikely that you would ever get a better offer. I won't promise you much, except that it will be the most beautiful and attention grabbing video on your entire youtube channel, which I did scan. It's actually all pretty good. You're doing well man.

Samples of my work are innumerable, but I'd be using the following animation style for this, because I can do it in 6 hours this way, and make it epic enough to want to put my name on it. A part of the deal would be that I'm allowed use on my portfolio. (channel) with attribution and a link to your channel on that video. Obviously you can use it wherever you like, I just don't want copyright strikes for displaying my own work.

Obviously, your video would have much less fire and death in it, lol. Anyway, this isn't a sales pitch, I'm trying to extend a helping hand, so feel free to say no, as that would be easier for me. I just like the song and could get in some reps knocking out a spare video with the GPU rental covered.

This is a video I made a couple days ago with this tech - I work with dozens of animation styles and techniques, but this one is fast, and would allow me to extend an offer at such ridiculously low cost. Acceptance of the deal would also include a provision that you would not be allowed to tell anyone the price, since I don't want to spend time turning down super lowball offers for songs I don't like.


Here's a much more chill video I made for a guy's track but this one is in a much more work intensive system. I just thought it would be helpful if you could see that I create something very different for each project.

Click to expand...
Haha sure Nate, we’re down for that, and those terms are fine -

If you want to take it offline, our email is merlotembargo@gmail.com.

We do have a couple shots of our singer singing through the song, and myself playing guitar through it, that match the music, if you’re interested in using those. (Was gonna use for my own quick and dirty video haha.)
 
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CelticRambler said:
:weird: D'you mean the fee you've just posted in plain text on a public forum, right after a link to the song in question ...
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It's pretty clear that I'm just going to delete that later. I'm more concerned about the word of mouth. It's a one off, because I thought the song was good, and I knew this guy would have a really hard time finding a reasonable animator. This is a very small forum, I just don't want a post ending up on reddit with my email.

For the record, I'd normally charge around 3200 for a video like this, but of course that does normally come with revision, communication, and 2 days of work, whereas this is just 1 day no frills. I expect I'll do just fine though, lol.
 
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gdgross said:
Haha sure Nate, we’re down for that, and those terms are fine -

If you want to take it offline, our email is merlotembargo@gmail.com.

We do have a couple shots of our singer singing through the song, and myself playing guitar through it, that match the music, if you’re interested in using those. (Was gonna use for my own quick and dirty video haha.)
Click to expand...
I'll shoot you an email within an hour or so. You can send me a link to the clips if you like, but it would be unlikely that I could use them. It's not that I don't want to, and your video quality on your channel is good, it's just that I think it would be kind of a disjointed thing to switch back and forth between visual styles and resolutions in mid flow. That leaves trying to key it, and sync it, etc, which I could easily do, but honestly, it might very well look much worse than what I have in mind, and would probably triple the work time. No harm in sending me the link, I can take a look and if there's a way to work it in and make it all look cool without scope creep, I'll do it.
 
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Nate North said:
I'll shoot you an email within an hour or so. You can send me a link to the clips if you like, but it would be unlikely that I could use them. It's not that I don't want to, and your video quality on your channel is good, it's just that I think it would be kind of a disjointed thing to switch back and forth between visual styles and resolutions in mid flow. That leaves trying to key it, and sync it, etc, which I could easily do, but honestly, it might very well look much worse than what I have in mind, and would probably triple the work time. No harm in sending me the link, I can take a look and if there's a way to work it in and make it all look cool without scope creep, I'll do it.
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Sounds great, thank you so much Nick! I’ll reply to you with a link to the clips when I get home in a couple hours. They’re both pretty basic, with the subjects lit and the background very dark.
 
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Nate, it looks great! We both love it. Dreamy, semi-realistic, semi-AI, and semi-anime, which all fit the song really well.

We'll of course credit you wherever it's used; we will have to find you on IG/etc.)

(The song drops on Friday, 6/30, so we'll keep our link private till then, but fine to keep yours up!)

Thanks so much!
 
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