Blue Valentine firework technique (how to?)

hi,

nice sequence. These are are some if the things I'd try:

depending on the picture I might animte some soft edged masks. These could be rough circles that expand out quickly, say over 4 frames or so. Then layer the firework shot over the top. You will need to fiilde with the mask to mimick the motion of the fireworks.

On other pic I might use the firework footage as the mask itself. So add an imageMask to the photo and use the firework stuff as the source. You dont have to use the same firwork footage as the overlaying firework. or you could change the size of the mask version to give it some variation but match the motion.

And you could play around with the blend modes of the firework footage to reveal any photos behind it. Layering up firework shots using this could be interesting to. Maybe using one as a reveal, and then overlaying or adding others for effect.

and then you might light the scene with lights to add that edging off into darkness look.

hth

adam

Adam Scoffield wrote:

… On other pic I might use the firework footage as the mask itself. …

basicly I fully agree.

but …

usually, a fireworks is itsi-bitsi-tiny dots, swarming as particles.

=> for masking quite unuseful. look:

what they did, they recorded the fireworks completely out of focus (bokeh!), to have large, massive circles instead of tiny dots.

I dare to say, this is no beginner's task to create a CGI-particle fireworks looking like that, nor to 'process' in any way a stock-footage to get this look (a Gaussian blurr looks totally different than an in-camera out-of-focus).

your first suggestion, using 'rough, expanding circles' as masks seems to me the more promising method.-

but I'm just a beginner, perhaps our pros have suggestions - no simple task!

and a beautiful effect! 😁