3 SIMPLE and FAST Movie Effects in Premiere Pro

Published on August 19, 2020

Video Effects

Color Grading, color match, Dream Effect, dreamy look, echo, echo effect, Light Leaks, Movie Effects, simple effects, trippy effect, video effects

Simple Movie Effects

We all know the feeling when we’re watching a movie, see a cool effect, wonder how they made it and then realize it’s actually super simple to create. So that’s why I created 3 simple and fast effect in Premiere Pro.

Trippy echo effect

You probably have seen it before whenever a character got drunk, took drugs or got hit on the head. He or she sees everything with an echo, it looks super trippy. Well that’s super easy to recreate with the echo effect in Premiere but this effect is really heave so your playback will go super slow. There’s another solution to create this without a heavy effect. Just duplicate your clips multiple times and offset each clip by a couple of frames, then put the blending modes to screen (except for the original clip) and there you have it.

Dreamy look effect

Sometimes a character has a flashback or dream and there are many different ways to portray this but often times filmmakers choose to go for a dreamy look. Well I found a way to create this. Once again, duplicate your clip two times. Both have to have the screen blending mode and a directional blur effect. On one clip you can turn the blur to 45 degrees for example and on the other to 135 degrees, this will create a kind of star on your highlights. And voila, a dreamy look, now if the video becomes to bright now you can always use the lumetri color panel to lower the exposure.

Movie color matching

I often look at movie scenes, completely mesmerized by the way they color graded their shots, knowing that I won’t be able to get the exact same colors on my shots. Unless… With the lumetri color panel in Premiere Pro we can go to ‘color wheels & match’, select comparison view, go to a screengrab of our favorite movie scene and then select ‘apply match’. The colors of our shot will immediately be matched with the movie scene. This won’t adjust the exposure or contrast so we’ll need to change that ourselves in the basic correction tab.

Create you own light leaks

Well here’s one extra effect, a way to create your own light leaks or flares. When you add an adjustment layer to your timeline, apply the 4-color gradient effect to it. Next make 3 of the 4 colors black and use the last remaining color as the color you want your light leak to be. Then animate the point values overtime with keyframes. Next place a shot beneath the adjustment layer and set the blend mode to screen. Here you go, your own animated light leak!

Working and editing in teams

Making a movie is something that you do with a team. Often times that can be a bit hard, especially when you have to edit with a team. But we found a great way to do this, both physically with servers and inside Adobe Premiere Pro so we decided to make a class about it on Skillshare. Have a look at it, because the first two months on Skillshare are completely free. Free knowledge? Let’s do it!