Episode 007 - Cut Your Friends in Half or Just Punch Through Their Chest

Episode 7 of Film Riot covers some of the effects featured in PMS the Horror Movie. Each of these effects are the most requested by viewers via comments and e-mails.

Episode Run-time: 10:32

Chest Impale Effect

 * Difficulty: Medium/HARD
 * Needs:
 * Pair of Matching Shirts
 * Scissors
 * Ground Meat
 * Adobe After Effects (or other editing software)
 * Cost: $20
 * 1) Cut a line on one of the shirts (front and back) just big enough for your actor's hand to punch through it.
 * 2) When shooting the footage:
 * 3) *On your signal have your actors as though one punched and the other was hit.
 * 4) *Have two assistants line up the cut shirt to where your actor was standing.
 * 5) *The actor punching will hold up a hand of ground meat, punch through the hole and release the meat as they do so.
 * 6) Import your footage into After Effects. Place the clip of the punched-through shirt over the clip of your actor.
 * 7) Mask around the hole and feather (make sure your blending mode is on "Add").
 * 8) Reposition your clip to match your actor.
 * 9) Reposition your clip on the timeline to match the actor's reaction to the hit. And done!

Demon Face Warp Effect
Ryan credits Andrew Kramer of videocopilot.net for the Demon Face Warp effect. Video Copilot is, as Ryan puts it, an amazing resource for anyone using Adobe After Effects, especially since the site's video tutorials go in-depth with details behind specific effects.

Half-a-Man Effect
The meat and blood assets are available at the Film Riot Facebook page.
 * Difficulty: HARD
 * Needs:
 * Adobe After Effects (or other editing software)
 * Meat asset
 * Blood asset
 * Cost: $20
 * 1) Have your wounded actor lay on the floor with the second actor next to them. If there are more actors in the scene, make sure they do not cast a shadow over the part of the body of the wounded actor that you are going to remove later.  Shoot the scene.
 * 2) Now get all of your actors out of frame and get a clean plate.
 * 3) Import all of your footage into After Effects and put your actor clip over the clean plate.
 * 4) Take the meat asset and place it above the clean plate, but below your actor.
 * 5) Using the pen tool, draw a mask to erase the half of your actor to reveal the meat asset and the clean plate.
 * 6) Add your blood asset just below your meat asset, change its blending mode (e.g. Hard Light) and opacity if needed.
 * 7) Bonus: Add a tilt to the footage to add to the realism.

Trivia
Deleted scenes from PMS the Horror Movie can also be found on the Film Riot Facebook page.

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