Fall from Marcy Elliott on Vimeo.
For this project, I shot several scenes of my family at Thanksgiving on an HDcam. Then, I took those shots into Final Cut, and strung them together using a few transitions. I exported that sequence into After Effects. I then created a motion path on a null layer (with a temporary picture of a 2d leaf attached to it). I used a lot of ease-in, ease-out transitions to make the motion look more realistic. In order to create a 3d leaf, I took a picture of a leaf into photoshop, masked the edges, and converted it into a 3d postcard. I took that postcard into a separate After Effects Composition, and made a series of 3d rotations (aligned to the current positions that the leaf would be in along the path). After exporting that composition, I brought it back into my first After Effects Composition. I then got rid of the 2d leaf image, and instead, attached the 3d rotation leaf to the motion path. After adding a few size keyframes to the leaf, I also keyframed masks around objects for the leaf to fly behind. Finally, I added a hue/saturation effect to the leaf, and a motion tracked lens flare to the star on the Christmas tree. Thanks so much for reading my long explanation, and I hope that you enjoy "Fall."
