How do I reproduce the 'Alias' scene intro effect?

[daamon]

Hi All,

I'm looking to reproduce the effect used before some scenes in "Alias" where a town / city name flies towards you on a black background, with one letter inverted, and being able to see through that letter to the city "behind" it.

I'm 90% there, but the only bit I cant achieve is seeing through the inverted letter to the city footage in a seperate track.

I'm using Bluff Titler to create the effect and I can either export to uncompressed AVI with the black background, or uncompressed AVI with the background transparent.

With the former, you can't see through the inverted letter but you get the black background. With the latter, you can see through the inverted letter, but the black is obviously gone.

I can't find a way to colour the inside of the inverted letter so that different colour (say blue) can then be keyed out in Premiere Pro (which I'm using too).

Can it be done in Premiere?

Any ideas? Cheers...

[guns1inger]

Try using the same font in premiere to create a mask. You will have to match the motion and scale to keep it in place, but it should be easy. I don't know exactly what the Alias effect looks like (don't watch the show), but unless it is 3D text, Bluff seems like overkill.

[daamon]

Hi guns1inger,

I thought about trying to invert the text in Premiere, but I can't see how that's done. So doing a mask is either tricky or not possible with inverted text.

I don't think Premiere can do something simple like inverting text (or, at least, I couldn't see any obvious way of doing it) - that's why I resorted to Bluff, and it does the motion too.

I've created a simple WMV to show the effect, the only thing it's missing (what I'm trying to achieve) is to be able to see through the inverted "A" - with a shot of the city showing through it, with more being revealed as the "A" gets bigger...

EDIT: Upload fixed, file now on VideoHelp server:
alias_effect.wmv
(156kb)

[hhhhbk]

for people to be able to see your file you need to put the internet address of the file rather than

http://alias_effect.wmv/

[guns1inger]

Just having a play in photoshop gives me this process. Create a black screen at you your format's resolution (CS2 does this easily, with safe area guides and correct PAR). Add your text in white, and flatten the layers. Select the first letter with the magic wand. and delete it. You should now have a transparent section in your title slide. Save this as a png file. Now you have your basic title slide. You should be able to apply this to an overlay video track in Premiere and see through it.

To get the motion, I would create a new file in photoshop with a much higher resolution - at least 1440 x 1152). Use the paint tin to fill it with black. Paste you first file into the centre on a new layer. Your transparent letter will disappear because it shows the black behind it. Go back to the larger layer and cut out a section behind the transparent letter using the magic wand. It can be rough as no-one will see it. Flatten the image and you should now have a version of your title slide with a lot of empty space around it. Save it as a png to preserve the transparency.

Now comes the tricky part, because I don't use Premiere - look up the help files for motion tracks or similar. It will be a way to move an image or clip around the screen. This is what you need to be able to create the zoom motion for your title. You should be able to load the large slide, zoom in, and still see through the letter. Zoom fast enough toward the end and you should be able to slip righ through the missing letter without it pixelating to badly.

Hopefully this makes some kind of sense.

/* edit

Actually, as it is Premiere, you can probably just save everything as PSD files instead.

I know this isn't exactly what you are after, but it does give you an idea of masking etc in Premiere - http://www.creativecow.net/articles/king_leonard/handwriting/

/* end edit

[daamon]

for people to be able to see your file you need to put the internet address of the file rather than

http://alias_effect.wmv/

It's not stored on an internet location, I'm following this:



And getting the result you're currently seeing. Is it a bug or am I missing something?

@ guns1inger: Yes, it does make sense. Thank you. I hadn't considered Photoshop - mostly coz I'm not at all adept at it, but I'll have a play.

One question: What do you mean by "flatten the layers" and "Flatten the image?". What is "flattening", what does it achieve? And how is it done?

I'm more familiar with Premiere, and I'm OK with moving the image around and zooming it...

Cheers.

[guns1inger]

These options are available under the layer menu. They compress (in a good way) all the layers in an image down to a single layer. It can make life easier if you don't need all the layers in the finished output.

[daamon]

These options are available under the layer menu. They compress (in a good way) all the layers in an image down to a single layer. It can make life easier if you don't need all the layers in the finished output.

OK. Cheers.

I've edited my earlier post to point to an internet location where there's a clip demonstrating how far I've got and (nearly) what the "Alias Effect" is...

I'll reproduce it here, for ease. I'm wanting the inverted "A" to be see through...

alias_effect.wmv

[daamon]

I've figured it out!!! Thanks to guns1inger for the inspiration to use Photoshop. Here's how I did it:

1) In Photoshop, create a new picture with a transparent background, custom size of 1536 pixels wide x 1152 high. This is double 768 x 576 - PAL DVD size. I'll explain later why I chose 768 instead of 720.

Why twice the size? So that when the image is zoomed "through" - i.e. it's made really big - there's reduced, if any, blockiness in the letters.

2) Type the town / city name, I used "Prague", but don't type the letter to be inverted.

In this case, instead of the "a" I typed two spaces so I had "Pr gue". This is so that the inverted "a" can fit in later. Use an appropriate font size so that most of the width of the image is taken up with the name.

Make sure this text is white.

3) Now type the missing letter in the same font size. Colour this letter either perfect green (R: 0, G: 255, B:0) or perfect blue (R:0, G:0 , B:255) - depending on the predominant colours in the footage of the town itself.

Arrange the letter so that it fits in the gap filled with spaces. I zoomed in a bit so that I could arrange it perfectly, this also helps for the next step.

4) Draw a white rectangle around the blue letter so that the letter is entirely inside the rectangle, but no other letters are covered by or touching the rectangle. You may need more spaces...

5) With the shape layer selected, do: Layer -> Arrange -> Send to back

This should give you:



Save this as a PNG file - it preserves the transparency and is recognised by Bluff Titler.

6) Now start anew in Bluff Titler, and delete the default "YES" text that it gives you. Load up the PNG image you've just created, but don't resize the window to match the image size. You should have a black background.

7) Set keyframes so that the name starts small and in a beginning point (positioned as per your preference), then enlarges towards a point of your choice, and then zooms real quick to a size so big that the image disappears.

Set the frame size as Custom: 768 x 576. The reason 768 is chosen here (and earlier, when creating the image in Photoshop) is that 768 x 576 uncompressed AVI is the same width as 720 x 576 DV AVI.

8) In Bluff Titler, File -> Export as movie -> Uncompressed AVI

Set your required "Frames Per Second", and "Field Rendering" as "Not Interlaced". I guess the NLE takes care of that.

You now have an AVI of the effect you like.

Why use Bluff Titler, instead of manipulating the image in Premiere Pro? Well, I found that Premiere will only scale up the height and width by thress times, whereas Bluff Titler is far less restrictive.

9) Load this AVI into Premiere Pro in a track above the footage of the town you want to appear through the inverted letter.

10) Load the "Blue Screen" keying filter onto the AVI with the town / city name in it. The filter will make anything coloured perfect blue (i.e. your inverted letter) appear as transparent - the effect we're after.

11) Preview the footage in Premiere. This is how I got mine to look:

EDIT: Upload fixed, file now on VideoHelp server:
alias_effect2.wmv
(175kb)

[guns1inger]

Nice to see you found a solution. My only comments

1. I would fade it in at the start so it's appearance isn't as abrupt

2. Slow it down so I know what I'm looking at. Perhaps do it in two stages; in > pause for 2 seconds > out

Otherwise, good stuff.

[daamon]

Hi guns1inger,

Now I've got the process sorted, I'll tweak it so that it's more "user friendly" so to speak...

Cheers for the feedback and help.