Muzzle Flash Tutorial - AFTER EFFECTS

So today I'm going to be showing you how you guys can create a first person muzzle flash effect inside of Premiere Pro. For my footage I used a GoPro on a head strap to get the first person view and then for my prop gun I used a propane powered airsoft gun. The way these airsoft guns work is you take a magazine and you fill it up with some propane right here through the bottom just like this and then you take the magazine and insert it into the airsoft gun and now when you fire it the slide will blow back. These are my favorite types of prop guns to use for gun effects because for one they're made out of metal and they have some good weight to them. Sometimes if you're using plastic guns for your props they can look a little light and flimsy on camera and you can tell that they're not real and the other thing I really like is with the slide blowing back when you fire it it gives the gun a nice realistic look like it's actually shooting and it helps you fake the recoil a little bit better. You can find airsoft guns like this at places like sporting goods stores where they sell paintball guns and stuff like that or online through airsoft gun websites. I'll leave a few links down in the description where you can find some good ones. Alright guys so now let's jump into how you can create this effect but first really quick I want to thank the sponsor of today's video Skillshare. Skillshare is an online community for creative people and those who are curious about learning. With a premium membership you have access to thousands of classes on topics such as design, photography, and video. Over the last few months I have been learning from multiple classes using Skillshare. One of my favorites is film director Nguyen Anh Nguyen's class called Indie Filmmaking Get the Blockbuster Look on a DIY Budget. He's a talented director who creates short films with great VFX in them. Right now if you click the link in the description below the first 1,000 people will get a free trial of a Skillshare premium membership and then after that it's less than $10 a month for you to continue using Skillshare to further your learning. So if you're interested in joining Skillshare make sure to check out that link below and enjoy your free trial. But okay guys let's get back to today's effect. For my footage I shot only one clip using a GoPro that was of me firing the airsoft gun. I made sure I was in an area away from the public so that I didn't startle anyone with the gun because these do look like real guns and you want to be smart and safe with how you use them. Last thing you want is the cops to be called on you because someone thought you had a real gun. Also don't use these airsoft guns as a prop while they're loaded with BBs and never use a real gun. Make sure whenever you're using a prop gun for your films that you're always being responsible. Okay so that's my don't do anything stupid speech. Now for the muzzle flash effect I used a stock footage element of a front view angle of a muzzle flash sequence and a few front view angled smoke puffs. I use Action VFX for most of my stock footage and it's some of the best that you can find. They have everything you need for action effects from gun stock footage to fire and explosions. They also have a bunch of free VFX that you can download and are frequently adding new assets. So I'll leave a link down in the I also used a few high quality gun sound effects for the finishing touch. Sound is super important for gun effects and sounds the best when you layer multiple sounds together. If you don't get the sound effect right, it doesn't matter how good your effect looks, bad sound will throw everything off. Here's my final effect with high quality sound. You can find some pretty nice sound effects on YouTube that people upload for free. Just look around and you'd be surprised what you can find sometimes. If you're looking to a professionally recorded gun sound effects pack, Action VFX has some of those too. Their gun sound effects are great and they were recorded using real guns with professional audio gear. I'll link their gun sound effects pack in the description as well. But alright, now let's jump into Premiere and create the effect. Inside of Premiere I have my GoPro footage imported and added to my timeline. I imported the muzzle flash sequence and a smoke puff as well. The first thing I'm going to do in Premiere is duplicate my GoPro footage. I'll make sure the footage is not selected and then hold down alt on the keyboard and click and drag the video part of the clip up to the 5th video track. I want there to be 3 empty video tracks underneath it. Then I'll bring the playhead to the point of the clip where the first shot happens. I used the spike on the audio track when the airsoft gun fires to help line this up. This is the point in the footage right when the slide starts blowing back on the gun. So at this point I'm going to select the duplicated layer, go into effect controls, and through the opacity tab I'll select the pen tool and create a mask around my hands and the gun. Then I'll make a cut on this duplicated layer at the point where the first shot happens and I can delete this front portion. Then I'll go forward 1 frame and make another cut at this point. I need this same mask done for each of the shots in my footage. So I'll go through and do the same thing for each gunshot, trimming the duplicated layer to last only 1 frame for each. I also need to slightly reposition the mask for each of these to line back up with my hands and the gun. But that will be quick because it's only 1 frame for each. I'm creating these masks because when I stack the stock footage elements underneath they're going to look like they're in front of the gun. After I have that finished up, now I can bring in my muzzle flash. I'll bring the muzzle flash video into my sequence, putting it on the 3rd video track. I want there to be 1 empty track above and below this. Next I'll trim off 1 of the muzzle flashes out of this clip that will only last 1 frame. Then I can drag the rest of this muzzle flash stock footage over to the side so that it's out of the way for now. I'm not going to delete it because I'm going to keep trimming off single muzzle flashes to use them for the gunshots. Next I'll select the muzzle flash frame I just trimmed off, go into effect controls, and turn the blend mode to screen. Then I'll scale and reposition it to where I want it, lining it up with the barrel of the gun. Next I'll duplicate the muzzle flash and stack the duplicated layer above. I'll select the top muzzle flash and scale it up so that it's slightly larger than the muzzle flash underneath. Then I'll change the blend mode to linear dodge and drop the opacity to 20%. This creates a glow around the muzzle flash. Now I'll bring in the smoke puff asset and layer it underneath the muzzle flashes. The one I'm using has a spark in the beginning so I'll trim off a few frames until the spark is gone. Next I'll turn the blend mode to screen and reposition it so that it's lined up with the barrel of the gun. I'll scale the smoke down so that it starts around the same size as the muzzle flash and keyframe the scale at the beginning of the clip. Then go forward about 6 frames and scale it up, creating another keyframe at this point. This just helps it look like the smoke is expanding from the gun. I also drop the opacity of the smoke to 80%. Then I right click on it and go to speed and duration and change the speed to 120%. Speeding up the smoke a little bit like this helps it feel more impactful. I also keyframe the opacity so that the smoke fades out to zero before the next gunshot starts. And that's it for the effect, I just need to repeat all those same steps for each time the gun fires. You don't want to use the same muzzle flash or smoke puff for consecutive shots because it will look too repetitive. You can repeat the same assets but try to break them up a bit and use different ones in between. I like to do only the smoke puff for some of the shots and not have a muzzle flash on it. Because if you ever watch how a blank firing gun shoots that they use for movies, it doesn't have a muzzle flash for every shot. So feel free to leave the muzzle flash out a few times, it adds to the realism. Now I can bring in my gun sound effects and stack those to how I want them. And after that, the final thing is to add an adjustment layer above all of my footage and add a color grade using Lumetri Color. This helps blend everything together. And there you go guys, that's it. That's how you create a first person muzzle flash effect inside of Premiere Pro. Remember to check out the description for all the links that I talked about earlier. But thank you so much for watching, I hope you found this video interesting. Take care and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.