Simulate Falling From The Top Of A Building

Simulate Falling From The Top Of A Building

on Sep 26th 2011 with 19 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: A Camera, Bag, Rope, Building, and After Effects
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Run Time: 12:49 min
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

A brief walk-through of how my “Happy New Year!” greeting was made. I’ll explain how to create the illusion of a camera falling from a high building by using a camera inside of a bag tied to a rope… I hope you enjoy it!

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mp4

File size: 483 MB

 
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Graphic designer and Animator Tal Gliks, born in Tel Aviv, Israel, interested in arts, playing the bass guitar. Studied visual communications at the H.I.T.(Holon Academic Institute). The year after moved for Barcelona to pursue a masters in motion graphics at BAU, Escola Superior de Disseny. For the last five years I have been working with various studios and clients in Spain and Israel.  

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  • Sudhir

    Thanks for this, i lol’d at the preview :)

    Going to try it later on :D

  • Xandercorp

    Here’s a quick question, do you actually think we needed a tutorial to explain how to tie a camera to a rope and use it? How is that a special effect… Not to mention how “believable” the first seconds are, you can see the edge and the camera’s clearly a foot away from it then he magically slips and falls… This is NOT a special effect dude, this is something that anyone could figure out what to do so please stop submitting crap; there’s just not point in showing this kinda of stuff. What’s next? A muzzle flash tutorial where u get a real gun to shoot with?

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller

      We also aim to spark ideas in people’s heads. Be nice. :)

      • Hugo

        You’ve really got a community full with lazy spoiled people here on the great Tuts+ network :)

    • dj

      Agree… frankly I don’t even see ANYTHING that would be called falling on my monitor. Tipping over at the most. Leaves me flat. Until I read the part about a bag and rope – I was thinking the title was just another aeTuts attempt at attention grabbing and should have read “one day I dropped my camera while I was on the roof, but it was ok cause it landed at my feet.” Sorry, but neither the tut nor the effect lived up to the title of the post- would have been nice if it had.

    • Tar

      Well, actually you’re wrong. Special effects ARE practical effects, you are talking about visual effects which are the ones done in post. It’s really not fair to be so mean when you are no expert yourself.
      You didn’t pay for it and he didn’t promise you anything at all and if you don’t like it, you should say something constructive or at least stay away and watch some anime instead.

    • Sweet Justice

      I for one, found it refreshing to see an effect with a physical aspect recorded on video. It was a cool, free tutorial and I was impressed to see a fellow AE tuts member braving the sun :P

    • http://cargocollective.com/zoppo Mikey

      I agree with Xandercorp, this is a disgraced tutorial compared to the good stuff that usually comes from this site. But this tutorial was damn awful not to mention you really screwed up the effect. First off, in the beginning right before your dumb ass “falls off” the ledge we see some really really shaky handycam action, but then when you fall it’s pretty smooth. If you fell off a building with a camera you would barley be able to tell because the camera shake would be so intense it would just be a massive blur till you hit the ground and the camera broke. This was truly a dumb idea for a tutorial and a waste of my time and yours.

  • skrotnissen

    well, i liked the tutorial alot, so thanks :)

    very nice :)

  • NiceGuy

    Xandercorp and dj why project to the whole reader group that you are frustrated jerks? Be nice.

  • AK

    This is a bit of a non-tutorial, not seeing how After Effects comes into play specifically. As someone said above, it’s like a muzzle flash effect using a real gun, or a realflow tutorial using a glass and some tap water… maybe better placed in some sort of “Practical Effects / Effects on Set” area, probably doesn’t exist on the tuts network though.

  • http://fxxking.de FxxKing

    Great example of “what ever gets the job done” … or just go overboard and do this in 3D and waste your precious time. Thanks for the tut, Tal!

  • WGSXFrank

    Great tut! Don’t listen to the haters!

    Many people who come here are here to learn how to do effects for their own films. This is an effect. Sometimes… and this may be shocking to some of you kids; effects are best done on camera then refined in post.

    That’s what this tutorial is all about. Despite the somewhat sloppy camera work at the very beginning before the “fall”, he pulled off a somewhat believable effect with no budget using common materials and then refined it in After Effects. I’d even argue that without After Effects, the effect wouldn’t even look somewhat believable.

    Also, this is a TUTORIAL. You’re not going to create 100% perfect effects from any tutorial. Think of tutorials as a base. It is up to YOU to build upon that base, tweak things, and come up with your own camerawork to make the effect “perfect”.

    Want a more realistic falling effect? Make sure the camera spins a few times on the way down, then add a random “flip” effect in AE. Jerk the rope when the camera bag touches the ground to simulate a “bounce”. Come up with creative ways to make the shot perfect!

    *sigh*

    Kids these days…

  • http://taladesign.net/ Tal gliks
    Author

    Thanks for helping guys :)

    The main idea was to have fun and to see how can you get the “falling”effect in a fast and simple way. From that base you can do your own stuff and develop it to something different.

    For someone who is most of the time in front of the computer it was nice to do something different. Use the oldschool way.

  • http://www.tarsimpress.com Tarsimpress

    Great tutorial Great Example
    well, i liked the tutorial alot,
    Very nice

  • RustyEight

    Wow, you can taste the hate in here…

    Aren’t you guys missing the point? Tutorials aren’t to teach you how to make the end result. Their to teach you the tools and methods used in getting there.

  • http://www.sendmelive.co.uk David Ellis

    Nice Tut and great idea.

    Don’t be haters guys this is a really nice method to get results or even visual reference or a VFX shot. Most producers or directors I have worked with would much rather get great results like this on camera first before they rely on everything being done in post. Remember this method when budget runs out or a deadline is tight

    Good point above RustyEight

    Nice tut Tal

  • popain

    what happend ?!?!??!??!!??!?!?!?!?!

  • Phizzle

    I agree this tut is beyond obvious but thanks anyway, I appreciate it; gave me some ideas. But does anyone know how to do the cgi version of this? I doubt I can find a rope long enough to drop my dslr from any of the buildings downtown Los Angeles, and I don’t think security would appreciate me doing so either. I was thinking about using a parachute as well, but they tend to crash things to the ground. I’ll figure it out. Thanks.