Harry Potter: Wand Effect

        Have you ever wanted to make it look like you were casting a spell on someone on video? Let's be honest, we all have thought it would be cool at some point or another. This how-to is going to follow along with many of my other effect how-tos. You will need a video editor, some assets, a wand, and obviously the film that is going to play in the background.

         Here we go. You can obviously choose any wand that you want because the effect really doesn't have anything to do with the way it looks. First thing is first. You need to have the scene filmed that you want the effect in. Obviously the effect will only be a few frames from the scene, but you need to make sure it will seem and look organic. Once you have the scene uploaded, you can add another thing on called a null. Basically, just something to go on top of the scene already uploaded. You can take a picture of a sparkler and add that to the null scene at the frame with the pointed wand in the direction you want the effect to go. You can play around with the size and transparentness of the sparkler to make it seem like it is fading in and out. The next step is to add something that looks like a line of fire. You may wonder why we would even be playing around with fire for a Harry Potter wand effect. Well, truth be old, if you flip it upside down, add a glow to it, and make the flame a bit transparent, it looks really cool and honestly not that much like fire. You can also add a 3-D effect to the flame to make it look like it is going towards and passed your camera to the target of choice.

         You need to make sure that everything is attached to the flame and blended well. Otherwise it will look just like pictures attached to a video. Next step would be to add a lens effect. You can play around with the ones that your editing software allows you, and choose the one that best fits the scenario. Lens flares tend to work the best when playing around with flames. At the very end you can look at what color scheme you want to use in the general video after you blend all the frames together, and then you have this lovely wand trick.

         Last but not least, if you want to add a small explosion then a vinegar bomb would look pretty cool. All you need for a vinegar bomb, is vinegar of your choice, baking soda, saran wrap, and a plastic bottle. It's easy and not very time consuming. If you don't want an explosion and just want sounds, some software have their own sounds and some don't. If yours doesn't, then I'm sure you can find some somewhere on the internet.

        Hope this helped!!

Dramatic exit-- Director J