How To Create Bizarre Slit Scan Video using After Effects

[@Bawbalicious]

Having watched After Effects (and many other programs) tutorials for like a decade, I'm shocked I never found your channel. Your tutorials really are perfect!

[@TheTripWhip]

Finally, an effect other than warp stabiliser that can be used to replicate the psychedelic experience. Excellent video!

[@253emiliano]

This the best slit scan tutorial I've seen so far

[@ThioJoe]

Really love these videos, keep it up!

[@grudgin1877]

"Another tool on my quest to make something great".. You took the words right out of my mouth.

[@sethparkinson8156]

The best slit scan tutorial I've run across. Cheers!

[@bradfab_fx]

This is awesome simple and straight to the point

[@TalkSenseless]

Fantastic! I was afraid I was going to search for this forever, it's incredibly hard to explain in keywords...

[@chill579]

I have been looking for this vid since I first saw it and just didn't know what to type in, luckily I had it collecting dust in an old playlist.

[@EnglishRain]

I searched the Francois Vogel effect lol

[@morsobssesio]

This is one of the best tutorial videos I've seen on youtube! thanks!

[@hermiteater]

THANK YOU JOHN HESS !!!! this tutorial is so much fun !!!!

[@willtobias5280]

What you're doing is excellent and I'm very grateful for it, thanks

[@victoryzy]

Amazing tutorial and I love the inclusion of examples at the end!

[@trv16gel]

Looks like a lot of fun. Nice job

[@JamesWilliams-qw8on]

so glad I've found your channel

[@marcmediapro5539]

Great pro presenter and good instructor ..

[@robyworks]

Will Roberts - Did you get answer of that? I have same problem? Im using 400fps compresed to 50 + i tried use twixtor also, but still bad jagged edges not smooth like in video here :(

[@MPproductionschannel]

I think if you raise the time resolution to over 500-1000 it starts to get much smoother

[@xplayac]

That was both cool and enlightening.

[@brezhnevseyebrows965]

Fantastic tutorial! I followed the steps, using footage shot at 60fps, yet I am still getting jagged edges instead of smooth movements of the kind shown in your examples. I have tried a number of things but nothing seems to be working

[@FilmmakerIQ]

Even 60fps is a little low - in these examples I have 720 60p footage - that's been sped up to about 300% giving me about 180 fps. Also make sure you're working with 16 bit color.

[@franciscofavarolaferrara8805]

This is a REAL tutorial you guys, thanks a lot! I'm subscribing now and I'll check out your channel ♥

[@petermcpartland9682]

Masterful tutorial videomaking

[@joemoloney]

Great vids,great site and very informative host.

[@TheBazookacow]

thank you my friend, great tutorial!

[@designanddirection]

What a superb tutorial.

[@IWTBFOY]

This was an amazing tutorial thank you.

[@Kao420]

great explanations

[@tbirdbaymoon1]

Thanks for sharing dude thats awesome!

[@bitstream32]

I want to recreate Flume's Some Minds video which i believe used this effect towards the end

[@FilmmakerIQ]

Yep, it's the same effect :)

[@benklewais]

+Panther EXACTLY what I was thinking from the start of this tutorial. I was thinking about the effect and started watching this tutorial and suddenly linked the two together. :D. Good luck with your video!

[@drinner]

wow! Though, I obviously missed an important step. How exactly is the background not effected with this effect?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

+drinner this effect samples pixels at different times so if a pixel doesn't change over time it won't be affected by this effect

[@drinner]

wow, that's really awesome, thanks

[@Androx5000]

Excellent tutorial. One question though, how can you use fractal noise as a displacement map? Because it's not picking it up, apparently

[@FilmmakerIQ]

You need to bake your fractal noise into the displacement map - just using fractal noise as an effect on the layer you're using as a the displacement won't work (as you found out). So you either need to create the fractal noise image in Photoshop, or you need to precomp that layer WITH the effect layer in the comp and then use that precomp as the displacement layer.

[@s87343jim]

So I know how to make the videos now, but how can I turn it into the photographs showed at the start of this video???

[@a.krishna3924]

Question, how do you make longer slit scans?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

+A.Krishna just shoot more footage

[@a.krishna3924]

Sorry I mean not length of video, but say person was walking from one edge of frame to the other end (most left to most right), by the time the person reaches to the most right, I want a long trail of the person from when he was still on the left. Also, how come after shooting at 100fps, and I apply displacement map with 16bit gray gradient, I still get choppy slit scan?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

A.Krishna okay, to answer your first question, you need to extend your time displacement longer. If it takes 5 seconds to get from one side of the frame to the other your displacement needs to be 5 seconds. Now why are you getting jaggeds? Because you don't have enough frames of information. If your displacement is 1 second and you have 100fps, you only have 100 frames to spread over displacement. If shooting 1080 and doing a vertical pattern, you'd have bands of 10px tall. To fix that, you need to increase the number of frames you're working with. the example took 60p footage and sped it up 5x for 300fps. Now if you did the same effect your bands would be only 3px and depending on of the motion, much smoother

[@a.krishna3924]

"the example took 60p footage and sped it up 5x for 300fps" so in time stretch, you decrease the value from 100? You're making the footage faster right?

[@a.krishna3924]

"your displacement needs to be 5 seconds" is this max displacement time?

[@cameronjirowetz]

I don't even have after effects but this was just so fun to watch

[@Sereftug333]

Hello, Thank you very much for your video ! I wanted to recreate this effect so I shooted the video in 120fps. The problem is that I still can see big pixels on her while she moves. Is there any solution or maybe a plugin that can help me to reduce the pixels ? Thank you!

[@FilmmakerIQ]

your going to need more than 120fps. my demo used effectively 300fps. the faster the motion the higher the frame rate.

[@drummermaster28]

all though my footage was shot at 60fps 720p, it looks choppy, vertically. how do you get such a silky smooth look with your slit scan effect?

[@drummermaster28]

how did you speed your footage up to 300%; under the time resolution (fps) option?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

first speed up your footage using Layers -> Time -> Time Stretch (you can also use the time remapping tool too)... Then you'll want to up your time resolution to whatever you sped up your footage to (ie. 60FPS @ 300% = 180 fps)

[@dantekaoz]

Thank you so much for this comprehensive tutorial and the great intro. You're a natural! I do have a question regarding how you handled the footage: Before you drop it in a comp, do you conform the footage to another framerate (i.e 60fps to 24-30fps) or do you leave the video untouched? you did mention you sped up the video IN the timeline using time-remap, I'm not sure if this was to just make your movements look "normal speed" or if it's a step to take after the video is in the timeline. I ask because your final result looks VERY smooth (without those damn jaggies) I have been testing with a 120fps video but I can't get it to look that smooth. Thank you in advance!!

[@FilmmakerIQ]

It's been a long time since I did this video but here's what I remember. I shot it at 720p 60p and brought it into a 24p composition without conforming. Then. I think I then sped up the footage 4x so it is essentially a 240 fps. The trick with getting rid of the jaggies is you need to have lots of frames to work with. Time Displacement works by assigning different times to different parts of the frame - so a dark part of the mask might be (-2) seconds and the bright part of the mask might be (+2) seconds. Now if your video is only 24 fps, that's 96 different layers between the dark and bright (24x4). Even if your shooting on 1280x720, even spread out over the width, each slice would be 13 pixels wide - very jagged. But if you have 240 fps - that's 960 frames - now each slice is 1.3 pixels which is about as smooth as you can get. I think the minimum is 120 fps for slow moving subjects... So anything you can do to cheat and get the frame rate up that high (maybe even rerender a high frame rate version with frame blender) will help the effect. I hope that helped :)

[@a.krishna3924]

So when you sped it up, in time stretch its from 100% to any percentage less than that?

[@sonimoretti]

Muchisimas Gracias !!!

[@jakebaine]

So is it possible to do time remapping at the same time? Say I'd like the time displacement to be normal speed for say, 3 seconds and then ramp it down to 50% speed?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

There's no reason why you can try it. But if you want smoothness of the effect, you need to start with very high frame rates so when you go down to 50% speed you still have a lot of time resolution to work with.

[@jakebaine]

Okay so say If I were to shoot in 60 or 120, and then slow this down?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

+Jake Ryan depends on how much motion is in your shot and how wide you want your time displacement to be. In the example in the video I believe we're working at 240 frames a second by shooting 60p and speeding It Up by 400%

[@jakebaine]

+Filmmaker IQ so what I'm using for reference and what so happens to be the famous example of this effect is Flume's music video "Some Minds" towards the end of the video. They shot a choreographed dance and most of the video seems to be displaced at half speed. Then they occasionally speed it up. It's just confusing since shooting 60fps and speeding it up isn't exactly truly "240fps". I guess I'll have to experiment with this.

[@FilmmakerIQ]

+Jake Ryan so yeah if you just double 60p stream inside a 60p timeline, you stay at 60p... *But* the time displacement can do fractional frames. So if you take 60p and double it, you can take advantage of the "extra" frames with the effect... The time displacement really does see it as 120fps despite how it plays in the timeline. That's the ultimate secret to getting smooth results. I'm not that familiar with the video but maybe the easiest way is to perform the slitscan effect and then time map the result.

[@FanSPT]

Wowww! Good idea! Thks so muck! It's very very heplfull

[@Meegzter]

Does anyone know how to animate the displacement map? I've tried using a gradient generated in after effects and it did not work

[@FilmmakerIQ]

you need to precomp the animation you use as the displacement map.

[@Meegzter]

@@FilmmakerIQ Thank you for responding! also thank you for sharing your knowledge and making videos :)

[@valeriahernan]

GRACIAS

[@AnteaBigotti]

Nice!

[@saschaseyschab4725]

Does anyone have issues with rendering and exporting with this effect? In my render queue it says it qill take approximately 22 hours :/

[@FilmmakerIQ]

If your settings are really really high - it's not uncommon to get those numbers.

[@saschaseyschab4725]

Filmmaker IQ Thank you for your reply. :) I filmed at 120fps at 720p and sped up the footage at 200%, then tried to export at H.264, which at first I thought seemed reasonable. Do you guys have any suggestions for possible settings for the time displacement effect? My displacement time is at 8 and time resolution is 120, would that cause rendering issues such as this?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

It's just the nature of the beast - get it set the way you like using a lower resolution and then crank it up for the final render. and just let it go.

[@saschaseyschab4725]

Thank you for your reply and advice. I got my slit scan effects done and used in a short film produced for my final year of college. Check it out if you like; /watch?v=smAiv_E-UZs . It focuses on unconventional techniques used for story telling, so there's lots of double exposures, freelensing, infrared photography and more :)

[@Veptis]

Sadly a lot of videos on KZbin when you search for this is actually an extreme rolling shutter. Not slit scan. I am surprised you got this wrong.

[@FilmmakerIQ]

Slitscan IS extreme rolling shutter. They are the same principles.

[@Veptis]

@@FilmmakerIQ A slit scan photograph has one spatial and one temporal direction. Your creation here still has two spatial directions. It just also has a time dimension. the time dimension isn't happening instantaneous, that's all. If you want to make a video that has the characteristics of a slit scan photograph, consider the following: have one spatial axis(Y works) and keep it your Y(columns basically). Now your X dimension becomes time. Meaning the first frame of your video will show the whole time of the source clip, at once. Just a single slit of it. All the way left is the column at time0 and all the way right is the column at time1919. Your time dimension can be you moving through the columns. So for the 2nd frame of your output video you see the whole second column of the input video at once. Just all 80 seconds at once(assuming 1920x1080 and 24fps for input and output). And your third frame.... This way you actually get something that looks like a slit scan photograph, you represent one spatial dimension and the temporal dimension at once. And use the video aspect of this to show the second spatial dimension. Maybe think about this as stacking all video frames behind one another, giving them some depth and rotation this block of data by 90°. Now going through it from the other direction. I have found a video that does it correctly in my KZbin search. If the historical example with the term used doesn't fit, it doesn't matter. Slit scan photograph made into a video format should still look like slit scan photography. What your idea basically is saying, is that the slit is moving at the same rate through the image as the time is.

[@FilmmakerIQ]

I think your vision of what slitscan is is overly limited. At it's core it's dragging a slit across a piece of film to expose different parts of the film at different times. This is EXACTLY the same concept of rolling shutter (as in the shutter rolls through the frame) only to the extreme. What you're describing (as in 2nd frame of is to see the second column but all 80 seconds) is keeping the slit still and moving the film, but slitscan can also be keeping the film stationary and moving the slit. (or even moving both the slit and the film)

[@Veptis]

@@FilmmakerIQ perhaps there is more. But you replace one spatial dimensions by time. If its during capture or display (or both) makes the difference. I found 'Informal catalog of slit scan video artworks and research' by Golan Levin (flong.com/texts/lists/slit_scan/ on the wayback machine). To show not only the rolling slit type example but many more of the static (Марiа Кiшка on KZbin compare No1 and no9 with no10) type. Also a 3D type of camera movement into space(not directly photogrammetry, as that fails with time) and even pushing it into a 3D cube as I described, but going through it with a complex surface projected onto a plane(for timelapses).

[@FilmmakerIQ]

I think you're talking more about something close to this kind of slitscan I did to recreate 2001: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZm1oGWNl7yhgbc Point is, what you're describing is only ONE type of slit scan. What I'm demonstrating is another kind of slitscan - they're all considered "slitscan"

[@lcinema]

First digital feature film was french, Vidock.

[@MegaDutchuch]

Is 1000fps okay?

[@robert3333]

This is amazing! I can really imagine using this for example as a result of a drug use to give the audience the pov of the drug user.

[@FilmmakerIQ]

Lots of people dropped acid at 2001: A Space Odyssey ;)

[@SomeGuyInSandy]

Neat!

[@samueltufts]

I think this is the effect used in the music video for Unintended by Muse back in 1999

[@crisisbliss2462]

nice

[@kostasfassoulas6915]

Would like to see if anyone tried this with some particle dissolve etc!!!

[@australopytekus02]

obrigado !!!!!

[@goldenretriever6440]

I think Vsauce used this in their distortions video

[@thomashenden71]

Cool! :-)

[@EnglishRain]

4:58 the real LPT is always in the co... oh, sorry i'm on youtube.

[@FilmmakerIQ]

No clue wtf you're talking about.

[@EnglishRain]

@@FilmmakerIQ Sorry, was just joking. Meant to say that the extra info you provided at 4:58 is really cool.

[@FilmmakerIQ]

Oh haha. Never mind me then. :)

[@EnglishRain]

@@FilmmakerIQ FANTASTIC video man, thanks a ton for making this! :) I ended up on your video after googling Francois Vogel video techniques as he uses this effect on his Insta all the time these days.

[@hesamfakhimakbar1153]

just look 4:16 LOL !

[@2160Studio]

time displacement*

[@D3cker1]

Fuck me do you know how to do audio?

[@FilmmakerIQ]

I have an audio playlist that can get you started on the main channel

[@Crown-Media]

Thanks man Nice tutorial