1. Light Trails
Long-exposure photography techniques are used by professionals for a sophisticated, artistic
aesthetic. A slow shutter speed captures movements that would normally be stationary and blurs
them along their path of movement.
A popularapplicationof thistechnique is to create star trails in the
night sky which can track the movement of celestial objects. Most
photographers, however, use this technique on busy roads and
highways. The effect, when done properly, is brilliantly colourful
and illuminated. Nevertheless, to achieve such footage quality
requiresexpensiveequipmentthe likes of which weren’t available
to us.
By changing our camera settings, we managed to recreate a light
trail in a photo,butnot infootage (NikonD3100, F11, shutterspeed
of 10 and ISO 100).
Upon further research, I discovered that a similar effect can be created on video by using the
software calledAdobe AfterEffects.ThisissimilartoAdobe Premiere but can edit smaller details of
particularclipsto distortshapes,change colours,andblendspeeds. This is exactly what I have tried
to do to create a light trail for my music video.
To do this, I have addedan echoto the
footage withthe followingspecial
effectcontrols.
