Help me with a FCP effect

Question

Hi im having some trouble doing this "ghost in the mirror effect" I can do the effect but i see exactly where i cut the clips and i need to know how to do some kind of transition. I have included a video that i would like to make mine similar to any help would be great especially if you could fina a video tutorial on the net. I want to know how to do the blurry effect at 0.14 & 0.18
http://vimeo.com/1678798

Answer 1

Stephenku wrote:
im talking about the wave effect in the youtube video above
...funny, I sort of misinterpreted your post.
However, although I mis-read your post, the fact is: to pull off the trick you're now talking about requires the same thing I said before. You have to cut your man out of the background. Then, (at least in After Effects) you could apply a "wave" filter. (My 5-minute investment.) A filter like this is going to work on the edges of your image. So if your "image" just so happens to be a full screen video then the entire image is going to wiggle. Not what you want! You have to isolate the subject, i.e. cut him out to have the effect work the way you've seen & now linked us to. It's your call, but to me this new technique doesn't make the gimmick any better. It amplifies it. And it's no less work than what's been covered. But now I'm really focused on the "transition" and I plainly see that the monster-to-be image moves to the right when compared to the reflection image. It's a jump cut that the wave doesn't hide. Motion has a "wave" filter but I don't know much about it. Might generate the same results. Either way, if you go this route, you're roto-ing your man off the background.
Here's the bottom line: what you're going for is pretty complex. To nail it (seamlessly) requires that you are extremely precise. So pick your poison. You have to, as we've all said, nail it down in camera and walk away with a pretty simple job to do in your software. Or else plan to "fix it in post" and futz about with rotoscoping and transitions and effects, etc. Given you're a newbie with the post side and the FCP is pretty hindered as a compositor you've got some decisions to make. Where do you want to focus the time - a LOT of time. Where is your precision going to happen? Because it's got to happen somewhere.
And with all due respect, how many of the concepts, already suggested, have you taken a stab at? You haven't given us too much feedback to work with. Simply you have to commit to spending some serious time somewhere: either in the bathroom with the camera shooting over and over. And over. Or with the manuals, reading up on compositing, Motion, After Effects, masking, rotoscoping, whatever... Expecting to quickly pull this off in an editor (that is poorly suited for compositing) is asking a lot. Either shoot it right, come home with the footage "in the bag" or plan to spend an equal - if not more - amount of time trying to accomplish it with software that's new to you. And if that software is FCP then it's really not even the proper one for the job.
Sorry, I really don't mean to start sounding snarky here. But I think we've handed you some pretty spot-on advice at this point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y48UZ8Xt_WY