Editing the Old Footage

In order to animate my shots and add a little life to the streets, I thought why not cut things out directly from videos? Sure, I could manipulate a tram moving from behind for example by simply adjusting it's scale and position along a time line, but how about actually making it turn a corner or something in order to bring it to life even more?

So using the old footage I gathered in my research stage, I had a look at the clips to see if there was any suitable sections I could make my cuts from.

Using the list I made previously about what things I thought could go in the background and help establish a scene, I searched the clips for anything suitable.

The "Sheffield - Last Trams" video was, as expected, ideal for the tram footage. It also gave me a couple of other shots that I thought might come in handy.

So, from this video...

I managed to cut the following clips to work on...

This one was of a tram turning. I thought it would be good to have it heading into the distance, then capture it turning, just to help keep it from turning a bit too generic if i simply made the still image of the back of one change its size. I'd probably use this in one of the long street shots.

So I cut the clip from the original source, then opened it up in Photoshop and started to cut if, frame by frame, from the actual footage...

Once each frame was cut, it enlarged it and put it on a bright green background, thinking ahead for when I imported it into after effects and used it within my shots...

As you can imagine, this took FOREVER. But if it worked, the effect would be well worth it.

So what I was left with was the tram by itself, making its turn, against an easily keyed out green background...

So that was one cut done!

I also used the footage to give me a couple of other things I needed, like a person walking in the distance for example...

Which was a little quicker, as I cut only two steps that were made, with the intent of looping them on and on to provide a constant walk.

Which came out as follows...

I also cut this old couple walking toward the camera in this shot...

...as I thought it would be nice to have them at the front of the frame, giving the shot a nice feeling of depth. Again, I looped this to try and make it last longer, giving me a much bigger clip to play with.

Using the same technique, it came out as follows...

...which didn't come out very well at all I thought, but I'll try and tidy it up a bit and see if I can make it look a little better.

Overall, the cuts don't look as well as I'd hoped, particularly for the amount of time put into getting them. But, as they will be placed within an old, gritty, grainy, crappy footage effect, most likely in the background somewhere with a little blur effect so the edges aren't as harsh, I think they'll look ok. Least I hope they will, and that the many imperfections will be hidden.

I want to do a few more of these cuts, as although terribly time consuming, I do feel they could be used well enough for what I'm doing. Although maybe it would be easier to film some of my own stuff against a green screen...?

Hmmmmm...