Posterised Freeze-Frame

[Timewarp Adventures]

Maybe someone can point to a thread or site where this is covered, or simply advise!

One effect I am somewhat interested in... call it casual right now... is where you have a little clip of footage, freeze-frame it and then it morphs into a posterised version thereof. Extreme enough that it looks like artwork more or less, distlled to very simple accents that suggest form minimally. (Clearly this will work best on a single figure against a minimal or even blank backdrop -- no?)

How hard is it to do? I don't have a video editor type person at this time and my own computer, at present, isn't up to the job regardless. But I'm assuming that with the right chops someone would find this fairly easy... few pointers would be neat anyway.

 

[Timewarp Adventures]

By the way, I do mean literally reduced to TWO colours. I have done this (fairly well) with still photos but that's a bit different.

 

[MarkKnightRises]

By the way, I do mean literally reduced to TWO colours. I have done this (fairly well) with still photos but that's a bit different.

If you can do the poster effect with a JPEG in Photoshop or GIMP then you can probably accomplish your goal in video editing. What you're going to do is...

1) open your video editing software and see if it allows you to make a freeze frame you can export as a JPEG.
2) If not, then make your viewer as big as possible and screenshot the exact image of video you want.
3) The screenshot will be JPEG somewhere on your computer.
4) Open that JPEG up in Photoshop or GIMP. You'll obviously need to crop out the unwanted material.
5) Do all the schnazzy poster stuff you wanna do in Photoshop and make a new poster-JPEG.
6) Bring the new poster-JPEG back into your video editing software.
7) Place this poster-JPEG as a stillframe on the video track above your main track. And line it up so that it starts exactly when you want it to start in your movie.
8) Underneath that same track you'll let your old freeze frame continue on, right? This would have been you just freezing the frame of your video content. This ordinary-freeze frame should be directly underneath your new poster-JPEG track.
8) If needed you can place a "fade in" at the head of your JPEG-video-track so that its appearance isn't sudden, but gradual. The fade can be 5 frames long or 24 frames long. Or whatever. Your choice, obviously.


That's about as simple as I can get not knowing exactly what your software situation is. Hopefully, these steps are somewhat understandable.

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

You could also use morphing software to create several JPGs so that you can have a transitional period where the freeze actually seems to be becoming the poster. Or you could use layer masking in Photoshop and adjust the opacity on the top layer (poster) from 0-100 in steps over time.