Create your own film burns for $50

T

[Tyler]

Member
I feel like film burns are a pretty nice effect to use in a ski edit and I never really put much interest into making one, instead I would just download some free ones from the web. I started to get a little fed up with the fact that its kinda hard to make them and there is a limited supply of them on the internet but it didn't bother me enough to actually do anything about it and instead I just kinda kept my eyes peeled for any sort of cheap way of making them. This season one of my friends invested in a 50 dollar Helios 58mm prime lens, at first I was like I would probably never invest in any sort of old lens like that but it didn't take long before I started to change my mind. The results from it are pretty sick and its an older lens so funky things happen in certain lights which you can either like or not like, personally I like them. One day we were sifting through some footage he had shot and we came across a shot where honestly I had thought he had put it into post production and put in a film burn but in reality he had just on accident put his finger over the lens for a split second. I weighed the pros and cons of the lens and I came to the realization that its a $50 lens and you can pretty much film burn with it so I bought it and I just received it today and I have been shooting with it none stop for the past 2 hours. Pretty much you start shooting with this lens with a black back round and some sort of naturally light and kinda slip your fingers across the lens and you get these clips that are pretty much exactly like film burns except you are making them digitally. I'm not quite sure if there are other lenses out there that do this that are really well known but I figured I would post a thread. Clearly the film burns that you get with this lens are not going to be as good as a true film burn but they are pretty sick and I think it was worth the $50. I know its the last lens you would probably buy for skiing but its a pretty sick general lens for photos and other sorts artsy shooting.

Lens: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=helios+58mm&_sacat=0
 
thats cool and all but doesn't that seem a little like a waste of money when they are free on the internet? but kinda cool in a way i guess??
 
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I sort of understand, and I have this lens already, but could you post an example, like a video showing what your doing and then some sample footage of what you can achieve? might make it easier to understand what is happening, and how it can be best utilized
 
Ya sorry I kinda wrote this pretty quickly and I am swamp in homework right now but this weekend I can put together a little video showing what I did to achieve a film burn kinda look with this lens. I have never put one into post production but just from filming with it a bit I started to see that as long as you have a black back round that you can key out in fcp, it would just leave your finger slipping across the screen. Also It works the best in strong sunlight, the less natural light the less it will soften your finger and make it look like a burn.
 
Here is a really short video of what it looks like, My fingers were a bit to out of focus so the "film burns" were not that good but if I focused in on them a bit more and let in a little less light the result would probably be better.
https://vimeo.com/43638334
 
this...you might be able to get some nice film burns tho with a zippo lighter and just hold it to the edges of your sensor while your recording.

still could add for some neat effects...but they're lens flares really
 
If you really want burns, zoom into a candle in a dark room. Stack the footage in your timeline and set the composite mode to overlay.

If you want quality flares, you don't need to buy a Helios. Just use any lens with an effective focal length less than 35mm and use the whacking technique to get crazy rainbow flares.
 
ha it literally looked like you were overlaying shots of your finger going in front of the lens...
 
I wasn't aware of other ways to make film flares/burns besides using a film camera so when I got this lens I was pretty stoked at what it could do but now I see there are many better ways to get a film flare/burn.
 
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