Questions about a potential effect...

[badmartialarts]

As I was sitting, bored, I started storyboarding my next AMV project, an effect-laden masterpiece that I soon realized I lacked the skills to even start, let alone finish. So, I decided to warm my way up to it and make a few short videos and play with the effects a bit in Premiere Pro. Then, I hit my mental playback button accidentally and started hearing a song I've been listening to, over and over. And it screamed, "Make me into an AMV!" So, I started storyboarding that idea, and came up with something even MORE effect-laden than the first one, but all effects I'm pretty sure I know how to pull off. Except for one.

If you've been around a while, or if you happen to catch a retro 80s video on MTV, you've probably seen an effect where people are singing and, suddenly, there are like twenty of them, stretched out on a line (Queen videos are notorious offenders). I'm pretty sure the effect was created by either overlaying the film over and over again, or exposing the film multiple times with a shutter. Well, whatever. I want to use this 'retro' effect, and I'm kind of stumped as to how.

Here's my potential formula, in a quasi-Premiere-type format.
Video 4: The original scene
Video 3: Track matte, that cuts out the background but leaves the character of interest
Video 2: The original scene, with a distorted, pastel-strobed background (hey, retro!) These three tracks together create the basic scene, with the character of interest non-distorted on a psychedelic background.
Video 1: Track where I create the 'stretch-out' effect, only has character on it, background cut away or made transparent. It seems wasteful to me to overlay the character twice, but I need the character to continue to be in the same position, doing their actions as this track does the 'stretch'.
The 'stretches' don't necessarily have to continue moving...but I want them to.

The only way I can see doing it is to create Video 1 as a seperate project, and play with the motion clip controls and overlay over and over again until I get 20 or so. But is there an easier way (that doesn't involve After Effects or some other expensive utility)? Then, of course, I could do it with just 2 video tracks....hrm. Any help appreciated.

[TaranT]

This topic's timing is weird . I'm working that very same effect right now (waiting for a render to finish). Only difference is that I'm masking an area, not a character - which is an interesting variation I had not thought of.

Anyway, I'm using Sony Vegas with the Pixelan SpiceFilters. You only need three tracks for this method. The bottom two have the identical clip (lined up frame-for-frame) while the top track has your matte. The matte affects only the middle track. The lowest track has the filters applied to blur, warp, time-shift, etc. It only takes a few minutes to set this up, BTW.

The stretching, or time-shifting, is done in this case by the SpiceFilter called StepTime. Unfortunately for most, this package is only available for Sony Vegas (you can read about it here).

There are other variations that I've tried which you don't need this special package to do. Using an old film effect with a black and white change for the lowest track, for example. Or a severe static noise effect, again in black and white, or maybe sepia, or blue-tint. The trick is to get enough contrast between the "normal" footage moving over the top of the "effects" footage.

[badmartialarts]

Well, thanks for the reply, but I think I misstated my problem...

See, I can do the three track matte. The effect I'm trying to create is duplicating the character multiple times in the scene.

Here's an example, using text.

{} <-thats the character (ugly, eh?)

Now, I want the character to do THIS:

{}
{}
{}
{}
{}

with the duplicates kind of streaming out of the character, and all of them still moving over a set background, that's still moving itself. Not asking for much, eh?
I think I'm stuck with compositing multiple projects....and I wanted to use that effect, oh....twenty or so times in the song, each lasting about 4 seconds...but hey, if it was easy, then no one would appreciate the effort.

(Clicks on Euphorize filter....)
Sweet.

[TaranT]

At the link I posted above, there's a description of an effect they call StepMotion. The 2nd picture in the group of four shows a streaming of a clock face. It looks sort of like what you're describing.

I'm new with this software, so I can't say if it will really work or not. And it's only for Vegas. I think you're stuck with the compositing...unless After Effects has something it can do.

[badmartialarts]

Think I figured it out. The effect I want is either 'Ghosting' or 'Echo.' Echo is more powerful, it's probably what I'll use.