Chopper Down!

Hi everyone! This is footage that Mike Sullivan took, with a little after effects twist.

Difficulty: Intermediate

Time: 3 Hours

How To:

The overall effect was somewhat simple, as long as you have experience behind you. The stock footage for the explosions were found at Detonation Films.

I created 2 freeze frames, and masked the tail of the chopper. I masked the chopper body also. Be tight with your masks. I also made a freeze frame of the frame where the chopper exploded. I then found a patch of blue, masked it, and covered up the chopper. I used a mask feather on the blue patch to blend the patch with the sky. Then, I keyframed the 2 chopper parts as if they were falling. They didn't look realistic at first, but after changing them up a bit, I got the right pattern. I added an explosion on the tail of the chopper to cover up the seperation. Then, after falling for a second or two, I added an explosion shortly before the front of the chopper to look as if the explosion were consuming it.

I also added sparks after the initial explosion to add some particles to the scene.

www.YouTube.com/Exceltia