Flashback

[patflan]

Hi everybody,

I am looking for suggestions for the best way to create the effect of a flashback in time.

On a holiday trip to New York last year I took some video at the World Trade Center site.
What I would like to do is jump from this scene to some photos we took when we were at the Twin Towers about eighteen years ago.

So it is a jump from a video scene today to a past scene of photographs of the same location.

Any ideas of the best way to do this? -i.e. to indicate that the scene has changed to the past - and then back again to the present?

I am using VideoStudio 11 plus and tried out the included FlashBack effect
but it did not give me exactly the effect I was looking for - it appears to be too fast .

Maybe I just need to play around with it a bit more -lengthening the time of clips or should this effect be fast ?
Or should I also add some sort of sound effect too to indicate a time change ?
I also tried changing the photographs (actually converted slides) to black and white but because their quality is not great the black and white made them less clear.

Thanks in advance for any ideas or ways anybody out there has achieved this effect with VideoStudio.

[Devil]

Use old film effect!

[Ron P.]

Along with Devil's suggestion, incorporate a Flashback transition, and sound effects. Sound effects such as whooshes enhance the visual effect.

The transitions duration can be altered, as well as several of the attributes. Or how about some creative, self made transition to the older photos, videos. I've used a succession of rapidly displayed images, zooming in. It gives the illusion or idea of traveling back through time. In VS you would need to adjust the durations of each clip individually to get below the 1 sec. To give an idea of this effect, you can go HERE, and select Play Intro. That was done using a flash authoring program, but the same can be done in VS.

[patflan]

Thanks,Devil ,Vidoman.

I did try the old film effect and it immediately gives a sense of back in time but as I do not have any videos ,just still images to go back to then the old film effect did not quite gel with them - the moving scratches of the old film efffect did not seem to fit with the still images.Unless I do some panning on the images.

Unfortunately I have only four pictures to play with so I will try stretching their time out together with that zooming effect Vidoman suggests -it does look quite effective in that clip.The idea I have is to combine the video of us looking at the Twin Tower site today with a quick flash back to the four pictures from us there before and back again.

Also the suggestion about adding a sound effect seems to be the key as when I tried the VideoStudio flashback effect it seemed to be lacking something and that something is probably an appropriate sound effect -Thanks guys.
PS -Vidioman,can you point me in the right direction to look for this type of whoosh sound efffect.

[Ron P.]

Here's a quick example I just finished putting together using VS11+, and the whooshing sound is from SmartSound's Sound Palette. They have several, the example is a Hits and Swells version. You can play and purchase them through VS's Auto Sound. In the Auto Sound select "All" for the scope, and then in the Library menu, scroll through them to one of the Sound Palettes.

There are others too, just Google for Sound Effects, and you'll find pages and pages of them, that are free, but the quality may not be as good.

VS11 Example With SoundFX

[rguthrie]

patflan,

Besides the excellent tips given by Devil and vidoman, I'd suggest using music to dramatically change the mood when you flashback to the Twin Towers, perhaps something poignant. Think about the mood you're trying to create. We see, actually hear it all the time in Hollywood movies.

Hope this helps,
Ronald Guthrie

[Black Lab]

A simple crossfade, set at maybe 5 seconds, would cause a dramatic entrance of the video clip (along with appropriate music, of course).

[patflan]

Thanks for all the useful tips.
From what you are all saying, having an accompanying sound effect or
music is just as important as the transition itself to achieve the flashback effect.

[Clevo]

Thanks for all the useful tips.
From what you are all saying, having an accompanying sound effect or
music is just as important as the transition itself to achieve the flashback effect.

Yes.... also some of the mask transitions are also effective like MaskA3 or MaskB5
found under the Mask effect

[sjj1805]

Keeping things simple is usually best.
Better to do a good job of something simple than a botch of something difficult. Simply do what the film industry uses for "back in time" and convert your flashback video/slides to grey scale. Audiences tend to associate gray scale scenes within a color movie as representative of the past.

For added effect you could do what Steven Spielberg did in Schindlers list and that little girl in the red coat. Easy to do with the slides but I keep pondering about how to do this with Video using the Corel line up of software.

[Black Lab]

Thanks for all the useful tips.
From what you are all saying, having an accompanying sound effect or
music is just as important as the transition itself to achieve the flashback effect.

Try watching a movie with the TV muted and see if it has the same impact.

[patflan]

Keeping things simple is usually best.
Better to do a good job of something simple than a botch of something difficult. Simply do what the film industry uses for "back in time" and convert your flashback video/slides to grey scale. Audiences tend to associate gray scale scenes within a color movie as representative of the past.

For added effect you could do what Steven Spielberg did in Schindlers list and that little girl in the red coat. Easy to do with the slides but I keep pondering about how to do this with Video using the Corel line up of software.

Thanks sjj1805

I think I will follow your advice and keep it simple.
I might be forced to anyway as I only have four photographs to play with for the "back in time" part.
My plan now is to try different sound effects to see which works best with
a flashback effect or a simple crossfade.

[rguthrie]

patflan,

Even though you only have 4 photos you can still make it interesting by lengthening the amount of time that the photos are displayed and using pan and zoom. I'm sure you could also find some excellent photos online to add to your project.

Ronald Guthrie (aka Alt0S4x)