Ever see a cartoon or movie where a person completely hides behind a pole or thin object? We’ve all seen it at some point. Till now, it seemed impossible to do in real life but not anymore. In this tutorial, I’ll show how you can completely hide behind a thin object in Sony Vegas Pro 11. Imagine holding a long piece of wood and you’re still able to completely hide behind a pole or thin object. It’s possible. In this case, we’ll make a dog run out from one side of the pole as shown in the image below.

Tutorial

Shoot

To start off, be sure to set your camera on a tripod. It’s important not to move the camera during the entire shoot to get the best results. Once you’re happy with the angle, you may begin filming. You should first shoot the main footage of the person walking by or hiding behind the pole. Next, shoot the b-roll. Record the area to be used as the background footage.

Lighting

Keep in mind that if you’re shooting outdoors, lighting tends to fluctuate. It’s best to shoot in a controlled lighting environment such as indoors. If outdoors is a must, just keep lighting in mind and try to shoot everything near the same time. Don’t go shoot the main footage at 8am and film the background footage at 12pm. The lighting will be different and mess up the shot.

Sony Vegas

Once you have the footage imported into Sony Vegas, add it to the timeline. In this case, I only needed the video portion of the media so I used the Adding Only Video/Audio to Timeline tip. Extract the portion of the person/animal acting or walking past the pole and place it on one track.

Next, cut the portion of the b-roll/background footage and place it in a new video track below the main track.

For the main track footage, go to Event/Pan-Crop and add a Mask. Mask out the portion of the pole you’d like to show.

If you see a slight lighting difference in the main footage, you can fade it in or out as needed.

Preview the footage. If all worked out as planned, it should look as if the person can completely hide behind a pole or thin object and has plenty of room as if they have magic.

Go ahead, try it out! Share your video in the comments below!

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