How Did They Create This Video Effect?

[Soopafresh]

I like it - an almost 3D effect of sharp images "popping out" against blurred backgrounds of sorts - sort of like that Viewfinder toy which created stereoscopic images when you'd look through it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhF3MBm9Yr8&fmt=18

[edDV]

Layers, keyframes and splines.

In the old days you started with the back layer and built forward a layer each pass. Today you can build the whole thing and tweak any layer that doesn't look right.

[guns1inger]

If you watch closely, you will see that the actual 3D movement is fairly minimal - just enough to suggest the effect - so you don't have to do a lot of repainting of the backgrounds. I had to do a similar effect a couple of years ago, only the lateral movement was greater. I extracted the subject from the background in Photoshop, then rebuild the background without the subject. The camera then panned almost 25 degrees off centre from left to right. When it works, it looks very cool.

[FulciLives]

I've seen stuff like that in some recent documentaries although the effect or is that affect? was much greater. Like guns1inger said the effect was pretty subtle in the provided clip.

Looks way kewl but sounds like a royal PITA to do it

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[guns1inger]

In something like AE, Combustion or Fusion, it isn't that hard.

Take a photo, and duplicate it onto two layers in 3D space.

Position a camera to look at the front layer. Use a spline to rotoscope/mask out the background of the front layer, then enlarge the layer slightly.

Now pan the camera across the image carefully and you will see the effect happen automagically. The trick is to keep the panning subtle so you can actually see the image in the foreground replicated in the background (hence the need to sometimes paint it out).

Drop some text onto a new layer at a different depth, and you increase the impact with very little effort. And of course, you can always move the layers independently as well.

[Soopafresh]

Thanks for the info.