Video Editing : The Ghosts of Edits yet to Be (page 2)

Finally, move down to the end of your timeline -- but expand it to at least three separate timeline tracks: the original reader track and two copies of the track with both monsters on it. This is very important. You have to make sure you separate these scenes by track. You need two separate tracks of the dual monsters scene so that the ghost's transparency effect won't also affect your headless monster.

Crop these two scenes so that you reveal both monsters and the reader. Then, right after the monsters cast their big spell, replace the original reader scene with the empty master shot and apply some kind of effect, perhaps a particle dissolve or flash effect. And voila , the unreal monsters get their revenge by making the real character disappear in the end.

Big overall lesson here? Stack multiple copies of a shot on your timeline and by applying cropping, keying, and different effects, you can manipulate different parts of the same scene to get very cool results.

Your skill with layered effects like these can put you in command of all sorts of fancy compositing like you see in Hollywood movies and on TV.

Easy as Abracadabra!

Editorial Note: Our entire Production and Editorial staffs got involved and we had a blast trying this out. Morgan Paar and Andrew Burke, shot lots of BTS (Behind the Scenes) footage so watch for our demo on a "Videomaker Presents" vidcast in late October.

Contributing Editor Bill Davis writes, shoots, edits, and does voiceover work for a variety of corporate and industrial clients.

• The Location: A living room where you can pull a sofa out so your "monsters" can pop up from behind it. You also need background objects to "show" through the monsters.
• The Cast: The Reader, The Ghost, The Headless One
• The Props: A piece of bright green cloth suitable for covering one "monster's" head for the headless chromakey effect!

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