A Blast from the Past

So here’s a few videos which bring back memories. Checking the dates of publication I can see that they were produced in October of 2005.


These show my early early attempts at visual effect shots that I made using our first digital camera, filming at a crude 10 frames per second. As you can see, the first three show my attempts at cloning myself with the interaction between the two ‘mees’ getting more involved each time so that by the third video I was passing an object directly to myself through mid-air. The illusion to me now isn’t entirely convincing but I can remember being impressed with what I had achieved at the time.


These last two videos show my attempts at rotoscoping... more specifically lightsaber rotoscaping. These were the days when my interest in Star Wars was higher than it is now and I and my friends used to battle in the garden using wooden sticks. Basically I just drew over the stick in every frame and added the necessary illumination and blur. I remember it took ages but was the only way it could be done. My efforts got even more elaborate by the second video where I included blaster bolts, clashes and sound effects too. It’s a shame in that I used to have about five more lightsaber videos but they have long since vanished about two computers ago. I'm suprised these have survived.