Need a flicker effect

NuOmegaAlpha wrote on 4/13/2004, 7:48 AM

I filmed a scene of my movie in a dimly-lit basement with only one lightsource from a hanging bulb (supposed to be a creepy, tense scene). What I want to do to increase the intensity of the scene is make that single bulb flicker a bit -- so basically every now and then the screen will go black for a couple of seconds but the audio and spoken lines will continue through the black. What's the best way to do this?

And also later on in the scene I want a part where it's mostly BLACK and every now and then there is a flicker of the light and action. What do you think?

I've messed around a tiny bit and found that this can be done, but so far I've found that what I've had to do is break up 2 second video segments, make them completely black, and then fit them back into the scene... it's kind of annoying. Any ideas?

Thanks
--Noah--

Comments

JonnyMac wrote on 4/13/2004, 8:22 AM

Perhaps you could simplify your efforts by keyframing the Brightness and Contrast FX on your scene. Just be sure to use Hold on the dark keyframes so that when you get to your flashes, they will appear suddenly. I just tried this on a clip and it was easy to do.

groovedude wrote on 4/13/2004, 8:48 AM

Easiest I can think of is to just import 1 black still image into one frame on a layer above your video and copy/paste/move to get the right timing. Although, you might have to run a film grain effect on the black frames, as even in darkness it should have the grainy look your footage has. In fact, if you have a black frame from your video footage just use that.

Hunter wrote on 4/13/2004, 10:35 AM

Duplicating to track above with opacity level envelope like this Flicker.veg

Hunter

NuOmegaAlpha wrote on 4/14/2004, 7:18 AM

You know I was messing with the keyframing -- and for the most part it works perfectly, thank you -- but one problem. I find that when I do a HOLD on one part and make the picture completely dark, it sticks to the rest of the clip. So what I did was make a linear keyframe before and after the HOLD but it was the regular colors... Is there a simpler way to do this so that that one HOLD part is just the darkness and I don't need two more keyframes to get the picture back to normal? But if there is no way then it's still worth it; just a little extra work. Gotta love the life of an editor. ;-)

--Noah--