I had purchased many, if not most--- maybe even ALL?--, of the Halloween cereals in 2023.
I had some favorites. And I was wondering how I would profile them on HalloweenThing.com.
Do I do separate reviews? A catch-all post?
Then I chuckled to myself as I thought, "Heh. I should just combine them all into one Halloween super cereal." The chuckle turned to a laugh as I next thought "That many sugared cereals together, they would probably explode."
Boom. Idea for this video.
THIS was it.
THIS was going to be the show closer.
The one with all the bells & whistles. Visual effects. The whole shebang.
And so I set off to create this monstrosity of breakfast food &
Production went like this:
I emptied a cabinet in the kitchen, and stocked it with all the cereals, facing out.
In checking the viewfinder, I found there were pockets of emptiness that needed to be filled. (The cereal boxes are tall, and the upper shelf isn't tall enough to accommodate two stories of cereals.)
So I went and grabbed my ceramic Halloween decorations: candy dishes, cookie jar, etc. and strategically placed them to be in the shot, fill the gaps, but not be obtrusive.
Then it was locking off the camera on a tripod and proceeding to film the pouring of every cereal into one bowl. I couldn't use ALL the cereal in the pour because a) the bowl wasn't deep enough and b) in case I needed a retake. So I had to balance a healthy pour, with the possibility of needing the prop further down the production. Also, full disclosure, I wanted a little cereal for me-self...
In this process I realized that I was missing a couple cereals so I snagged the hi-rez box art from the respective brands' websites. In post I blew them up, cropped, and angled them to make a bunch of stills slightly more dynamic.
Then I decided to intercut the footage of Tom Atkins from Halloween III: Season of the Witch's climactic ending. The web is covered with this scene so it was an easy get. (In hindsight I probably should have layered in the 'cereal pouring' sound under the H3 clip to integrate it better. Alas...)
Around ~00:51 I got to use the iPhone for a shot I love doing--- burying the camera under a mountain of cereal. The iPhone makes it easy: it's flat. The bowl was big enough. And I wasn't going to pour milk (even though I could have-- they're water RESISTANT for up to 30 minutes in 20 feet of water).
I enjoy how the sound naturally muffles as the mic is buried.
Next: a quick slow-mo shot.
In a blink-and-you-miss-it feat of filmmaking: I carefully shook a single marshmallow (made sure it was orange) out of a box. Filmed with the iPhone's slow-mo and then slowed down a bit more in post to make sure we see it. This was intended as the 'straw that broke the camel's back' or rather 'the marshmallow that destroyed Halloween.' I had to film it two ways: one shot of the marshmallow falling out of the box, and a second shot of the marshmallow falling into the full bowl. (I wish I had filled the bowl all the way to spillover, but missed that detail in the production...)
Now we're into the VFX. The nuclear mushroom cloud came from the Action Movie EFX app on iOS (it's called "Nuclear Blast"). I'd been meaning to use this app since it came out and haven't been able to find the right use. 'Til now.
As the blast cloud rolls over the camera, I cut to a SECOND effects shot (from the same app). This one called "Missile Silo." The shot actually starts with silo doors in the ground sliding open, and the missile flying off screen before cutting to the trail arcing over the earth and slamming into the planet. My edit starts a split second before the missile slams down, so the vapor trail isn't that obtrusive and the viewer's eye goes right to the mushroom cloud (as if the first cloud we saw got so big it breached the atmosphere). Then it's a THIRD edit back to the 1st effects shot but cropped closer and angled to match the angle of the missile explosion.
The question I had in using these apps was "how do just have the effects by themselves?" Usually you have to film something live, and the app layers the effect over your footage. The quick and easy solution: put my hand over the lens so it's just black and hit record. Poof. The effects have no other footage included. (I thought about just filming a green screen square off my computer screen... but I didn't actually WANT to key anything in... so the hand solution wins.)
As the efx cloud rolls over the lens from the last explosion shot, I cut to some stock footage that I found when I started editing. Gloriously--- the footage was next to nothing in cost, AND was a cloudy explosion that warps into a fiery jack o' lantern. I couldn't believe my luck. This shot was perfect as it implies the careless cereal gluttony has destroyed the planet. I added a few distortion edits from Capcut to make it a little jumpy.
And finally I did a fire edit to transition from the jack o'splosion to the Halloween Thing logo.
I was really happy with how this turned out.
Like all the videos I created for this little month-long experiment, it's not perfect. But it's DONE.
And posted on Halloween Day as my final entry in the Video Advent Calendar, my work here is DONE also.
Happy Halloween.
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