Star Wars Wipe Effect

How do you create the exact wipe effect that the Star Wars films use between scene transitions using Premiere?

 

I don't know how you can get the nice soft wipe they use in SW, but there's definitely a wipe effect of some kind in the transitions in Premiere. Look around -- perhaps consult your manual or help file for assistance.

Also, the wipes used in SW are 1 1/3 seconds long exactly (according to Ben Burtt on the AOTC commentary that I watched today). If that helps.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

actually Adam, I believe he said they were 32 frames long each. I could be wrong though.

If you have access to Adobe After Effects, you could do manual wipes and have them as soft as you could ever want.


-Mac

 

He did.

At 24 frames a second, that's 32 frames...

... right? (I can't count)

I put it in terms of seconds in case this fellow isn't working at 24 fps.

(Hmmm... did Ben Burtt mean 24 or 29.97 fps?)


Rick McCallum loves you!

 

Hmmm... sorry about that Adam. You were right... as was I. I forgot about film going at 24 fps. Heh.



-Mac

 

You can achieve this effect in Premiere (I've done it in several tests) by creating a black and white gradient in Photoshop (or your other favorite painting program) (i.e. black on the top, white on the bottom) and use this picture as the source in a "gradient wipe" which should be in your Premiere gradient-collection.

 

Even the earliest version of Media Studio Pro came with preset transitions that included all of the various different wipes from SW. I know AE has some of them too. I don't know about Premiere, because using premiere is like trying to get rid of a headache by punching your self in the face.

 

All that I do in Premier is have my clip that I have on top and then the clip I want to transfer to underneath in the timeline. Then in the transitions box just select wipe and then drag it onto the clip and then place it in the transitions line on the timeline between the two clips (note the clips must be overlapping a bit) and then when you export it it should wipe across at that moment. Hope that makes sence. If the transitions box is not open the go to window> show transitions.

 

If you use the stock Quicktime transitions, they have a wipe effect that you can soften the edge on, but it is limited in the direction you go. The best advice is to create a gradient in photoshop and use the gradient wipe transition and load up your gradient you created in PS. You can do all kinds of soft wipes then from all directions.

 

You can do that in Premiere. Follow the instructions given by odj two posts above. When you get the settings window for your gradient wipe, click the 'custom' button and play around with the softness slider (I just tested it and 25 looks about right, but ultimately it's up to your own liking).