We needed some inkdrop footage for our Ink and Paper effect. Sure, we could have bought some stock footage… but where’s the fun in that? So we created some footage on our own, and here is how:

Together with this post, we give away some ink drop footage we have been shooting. Download them here and treat them royalty free.

To begin with, you must stabilize the camera to get a steady shot. When you are shooting downwards, you definitely want to use a tripod. We chose to shoot upwards, as it gets way easier to not capture the hand or the eyedropper distributing the ink. To get a very smooth bleeding look, we placed a sheet of newsprint or blotting-paper on a clean glass plate.

Most middle-class cameras won’t let you record 50 fps with full HD, but 720p should work too, as scaling is hardly noticeable on ink drops. Depending on what you want to achieve, our 50 fps are a good tip because it gives you the possibility to remap the timing afterwards without having any motion loss.

To achieve a more vivid effect, wet the blotting-paper first, then drop some ink on it — you will quickly see that the edges of the drop are way more liquid than before.

The next important thing you have to take a closer look at is the light. We first used a wide angled dimmed light, to get an evenly lit surface, but it produced some flickering we needed to get rid of, so we used two equally bright lightsources from each side. Two identical 2k Blondes did the job, but of course you can use a simpler setup with some desktop lights as well. To get rid of the reflection we made use of a black spill cloth wrapped around the part under the glass. (Although you might not see it in the picture above: trust us, it’s there. We just wanted you to see the camera, which would be an impossible task with the black cloth wrapped around it) That helped a lot, but keep in mind that you have to press the record button once in a while, so remember where it’s located!

After you’ve recorded everything you need and copied your files, you need to create an alpha channel for your ink drops. We chose to go with After Effects, but you can also use any other tool that provides fundamental color correction functions.

There’s no need for you to export a file with an integrated alpha channel, since you will most likely use this footage as a layer mask for something else. Just select it as a Luma Inverted Mask like we did in our Ink and Paper effect and you’re good to go.

.

Jake & Dan

...you might also be interested in:

• Giveaway: Ink Chamber Footage