How to Create/Enhance TV flicker effect?

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Level 1

141 points

How to Create/Enhance TV flicker effect?

Can anyone suggest a filter/plug-in workflow (either FCP or 3rd party, or a clever combination) which which might help suggest that random flashing/flickering effect of light from an out-of-frame TV falling on characters in frame (who are pretending to be half watching the unseen television)?

We have a couple of such scenes in the DV film I'm now cutting, and in each case we rigged a special light, and did the old trick of randomly flagging and unflagging it with a hand-held card while shooting. Unfortunately the effect we achieved is a bit too subtle, and that much-recommended "re-shoot" filter is definitely not available.

So I'm looking for something which might randomly vary (within an adjustable and small range) the Black and White level settings perhaps, maybe the Saturation level as well? I guess I could do that by manually keyframing, but would love to hear any other creative thoughts. FWIW, I have the Nattress filters as well.

(BTW, the individual shots are all fairly short and deliberately "choppy", so I can get away with an effect which under normal circumstances might not be the world's most naturalistic look.)

Thanks,

John Bertram
Toronto

G5 PowerMac, Dual 1.8; 7 GB; Radeon X800 XT, Mac OS X (10.5.2), Mac user since 1990 (starting on a sleek SE/30)

Posted on May 3, 2008 2:22 PM

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Answer 1

May 3, 2008 2:47 PM in response to John Bertram

Do you mean other than the Bad TV filter in FCP? I think it's under Stylize. Or you could try something that Ben Scott at CreativeCow came up with: http://library.creativecow.net/articles/scottben/tvscreenmotion.php

But as I look at your post, I think you might be asking for something different. Are you looking to affect what's ON the tv, or the light that's reflecting onto the people's face who are watching?

If it's on the tv, one of the options above should work. If it's on the characters' faces...you could mask off the portion of the video you want to affect and keyframe it, possibly with the 3-way corrector. Or...boy, I don't know. That's a tuffy, especially if you can't reshoot (that filter is kind of hard to find, though in this case it might be a necessity).

Good luck with the project. Sounds like you'll need it.

jesse.

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Answer 2

John Bertram Author

Level 1

141 points

May 3, 2008 3:18 PM in response to Jesse Koepke

Jesse Koepke wrote:
Are you looking to affect what's ON the tv, or the light that's reflecting onto the people's face who are watching?

Strictly the latter (the light that's reflecting onto the people's face who are watching). Sorry if that wasn't clear.

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Answer 3

RedTruck

Level 4

2,145 points

May 3, 2008 3:55 PM in response to John Bertram

Are you trying to create light on people's faces, or are you trying to enhance light that already exists on people's faces. The two are very different things.

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Answer 4

John Bertram Author

Level 1

141 points

May 3, 2008 4:20 PM in response to RedTruck

Again, it's the latter -- trying to enhance (in a seemingly random way) the feeling of how much light (from an out-of-frame TV) is falling on a scene.

I've done some tests just using the CC 3-Way -- keyframing a few sudden (though small) shifts to the White levels and Black levels. This begins to suggest the effect of different shots on the imaginary TV casting different amounts of light onto the scene. Was just curious if anyone had come up with other recipes in the past to cheat the same effect.

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Answer 5

May 3, 2008 4:25 PM in response to John Bertram

Don't know about FCP to be honest, but if you have access to After Effects, you could do this by turning your footage into a 3d layer, enabling light reception, and creating an offscreen light, then keyframing its intensity and possibly colour.

Probably easier to reshoot though! 🙂

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Answer 6

John Bertram Author

Level 1

141 points

May 3, 2008 7:36 PM in response to Denis Murphy

In this case, "easier" is a relative term. Logistically, re-shooting these particular shots would take at least a couple of days just to organize, and for reasons of casting and location would end up costing several thousands of dollars.

Hardly worth it, given that these few quick shots are essentially part of a montage.

But I'm curious -- does anyone know if Motion 3 has anything similar to the After Effects process Denis mentions?

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Answer 7

RedTruck

Level 4

2,145 points

May 5, 2008 3:27 PM in response to John Bertram

you could do it in Motion, but you said you didn't need to create light, just enhance light that is already there. If the flicker already exists, you could add a glow filter to the scenes and keep the intensity low. You should be able to tweak it so it only affects the highlights in the scene. If it is a dark scene and the tv flicker is bright, the glow will accentuate it. Can do in Motion of FCP.

If you can post the clip somewhere I am sure someone can figure out the best end result.

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