Special Effects

A range of effects were used in the completion of the tricks performed in the piece, most commonly used were the removal of frames to make it look like the item had completely disappeared from my hands. This involved staying incredibly still as an item (either the coin or the pen) dropped to the floor, before the hand action resumed. Cutting out the frames where the item was visibly dropping meant that it appears like the hands had not moved and the item had just vanished. This was used on two occasions within the teaser trailer as the performer takes you through tricks progression as it moves from the small coin to the significantly larger pen.

The trick where the hand slammed down onto the nail was significantly harder to achieve due to certain complexities with the position of the light and shadows cast by the nail. With the camera placed in a fixed position, the nail was placed on the table, removed, and then the hand came down onto the point that the nail previously occupied. Due to the body staying very still, the middle sequence of the nail being removed could be taken out, and a still image of the nail on the table could be created. This still image of the nail was then put on a different layer within the project, and the nail was made into a matte which was placed over the moving clip. The difficulty came when the shadow appeared on the jacket of the performer and the table, so in all there were three different mattes. Then, frame by frame, they were edited to match the movement within the scene, and appear as realistic as possible. As the hand came down to the table, the matte was removed, making it appear as if the hand had passed all the way through the table and made the nail disappear.