particle effects and camera shake.

Howdy friends, if this is the wrong place please re-direct me.

I have been working with LW 7 for about 8 months now and I am attemting a star wars film. I noticed in the teaser for the new short film by the guy who made "the hunt" that he employed this beutifull camera shake. Does this have to be key framed all the way? I cant make it look right using that simple method, so it would be greatly appreciated if I could get some tips on that.

Ok, this is a bit general, so please dont get mad at me. I need some pointers on making starwars esqe lasers and explosions in space (what would a star wars film be without them?). I got the basic idea of particle effects, but I cant make them textured and/or realistic. Besides, I read elswhere that it would be better to just comp them in than actually animate them. I wish some application could develop a sophisticated 'explosion' generator. Even more importantly I need to find a realistic way of making lasers. Before I would hand draw them, frame by frame, in photoshop. Needless to say, I would be infinitly happy if someone could give me a more efficent (sp?) way of doing this. Anyway, as always, if you have answered my questions elswhere then please re-direct me. Remember, LW 7 specifics. Thanks, and forgive my ignorance.

 

There are any number of ways to make lasers.. Google can help you there. Look for the Dave Jerrard method.. five years old or more, and still quite handy. I've found the best results as a combination of LW and AE, though.

Camera shake is easy.. LW comes with a plugin called Jolt! that does exactly that.

 

Ok thanks. I knew there was an easy way to make realistic camera shake. But is it just random or does it interact with the objects?

EDIT: Wait, stupid question...
I just looked at it. Its key framed based, but the computer just does it better than I. Very cool!!