Football Effects

Watch this still photo brought to life. Read the PicDrift breakdown below to see how it was made.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Norris Photography

Instagram: @jnphoto_stills

PicDrift Artist Breakdown:

This was a great photo to animate, with a lot of potential for capturing movement, which was my main goal.

There was a lot of work to be done in Photoshop, considering there are five players and a bunch of people by the sideline. I had to do a lot of cutting out, cloning and rebuilding the missing parts, especially of the people in the back, obscured by the five players in front.

I also had to strategically plan where to cut the ground plane to avoid breaking the white lines. I went the extra mile cutting out the front leg of the player with the ball, so I could animate it later in After effects, adding additional movement to the animation.

The After effects part was pretty straight forward. I turned the layers into 3D and spread them out in Z-axes to create depth. Then, I decided on a camera move, focusing on the player with the ball at the beginning, but revealing the whole photo at the end.

Finally, I used the puppet tool on some players, adding an extra layer of movement, making the animation look more like the real video footage.