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An SFX question: how do they do that?

There is an effect that I see used often. I'll reference the movie Iron Man since many people have seen that particular film.

In Iron Man, when Downey's character has on the suit, he flies around and lands. Hard. Hard enough to make the ground shake. The effect I am asking about is the hard landing.

How do they make the ground shake like that? I have seen this effect used ALOT. I would love to know how they do that. I wonder if I can 'fake' that effect......

Its making me crazy :crazy:


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I haven't seen Iron Man for a while now, but I think I know what you're talking about.. a bit of camera shake (more than likely a post-production digital effect rather than actually shaking the camera) and proper sound effects will get you the same kind of result.
 
In final cut, you can just add a keyframe to the motion of the clip and keyframe it wiggling just slightly side to side and up and down adding keyframes each time it changes direction... there may even be a wiggle or earthquake plug in (don't have it open right now to check on that).

Motion (can't remember if you have studio or just FCP) would have something you can add to the shot though in the way of a behavior plugin if you can't find it in FCP. Then make sure the sound effect sells it... this is the part that makes it feel real. "Watch" that scene with your eyes closed sometime and listen to what they've added to make the visual impact.
 
I am a few versions behind in FCP.

I have FCP HD 4.5. Doesn't seem to have alot of effects there. I want to start seeing what else I can learn to make my projects more interesting but I have yet to really need effects when I am doing my documentaries. I just want to know how to do them...



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