Creating the Tilt-Shift Look in Post
Jordan Claverie - Tue, 02/26/2013 - 8:39am
Visual aesthetics ride the roller coaster journey of trends. Currently the process of making video look like miniature toys is a popular look, and why not? Called tilt-shift photography, this stylized look takes real world footage and turns it into a visual toy box. Expansive landscapes and steel behemoths are rendered to tabletop playthings; a world in the palm of your hand. Video builds on this photographic illusion, changing real-time motion into a false staccato of stop motion animation. The popularity of the tilt-shift look is in part due to the accessibility of 35mm lenses, the ability of DSLR cameras to shoot video and the software capabilities of editors to simulate the look in post-production. This article is about the latter: how to create the tilt-shift look in post. It’s a process that can be done in most editing software and visual effects packages. With a little bit of effort, the virtual effect can be hard to discern from the practical tilt-shift image.
