WHPspooky

This week's weekend hashtag project was an exciting one full of inspiration for me. I love spooky and I went totally creepy with this set of submissions for WHPspooky! Below I am going to share the videos, the apps I used to edit them and explain how they were done. ALL videos and editing are done with an iPhone. But first let's start with ideas... I immediately thought of ghost like figures for spooky and came up with the idea of using slow exposures, it is something I have done with photography but had never tried with video. I searched the app store and found an app called Magic Movement Camera. I put my iPhone on a tripod, pushed record video, stood in front of a white wall and shook my head back and forth.

The next two videos were created using the iMovie app for iPhone.

I really liked the idea of using myself as a ghost and creating more of a scene and since my feed is light and airy I choose spaces with light colors and whites when possible.  So I chose the bathroom/tub for this video.  I started by putting the camera on a tripod and filming the bathtub empty, then I got in the bathtub and filmed myself for about a minute with my head tilted in different directions.  When I brought the movie into the iMovie app I cut it into small clips putting empty bathtub, then me in tub, empty bathtub, then me again, back and forth.  And then, I added fades in between in order to get a bit more of a ghostlike feel.  After I was done I asked my 5 year old to fake cry and brought that clip in as well.  I separated the audio from the video, erased the video and placed the crying audio under me in the bathtub.

For the next video I decided I wanted to play a bit more with the ghostlike quality so again I took one long video of myself walking back and forth and then split it up in iMovie. This time I added much longer fades, 2 seconds each (the max available in this app) and it gave that overlapping ghostlike appearance. And then I recorded myself heavy breathing and brought it in, again separated it from the video so I only had the audio and then duplicated it so that I had it on there twice making it sound like multiple people.

In the final video I did for this weekend's hashtag project I decided I wanted the whole thing to feel ghost like and in order to do that I needed more capabilities that I had in iMovie so I did a bit of research and ended up downloading Cute Cut Pro so that I could layer two videos over one another. I made the entire video and layered it over one long video of just the empty room. Then I lowered the opacity of the video I was in leaving the room to be full and me to appear like a ghost in the room. Finally I ran down my hallway in some boots and added the sound from that clip to the video. Boom!

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about how these videos were made!!

Here is the write up Instagram posted about this weekend's hashtag project:

instagram Weekend Hashtag Project:#WHPspooky

Inspired by Halloween in the United States, the goal this weekend is to create spooky videos filled with suspense, like this one by@sandynicholsonphoto.

Here’s how to get started:

Natural sounds play a big part in hair-raising moments. Whether it’s chilling silence, or the creepy creaking of a floorboard — find ways to incorporate ambient noise in your videos that adds to the scariness of the scene. If you use music in your video submissions, please be sure to only use music to which you own the rights.

Build up suspense in your videos by starting with a quiet scene that culminates in a shocking payoff. Make videos with surprise spooky endings — and don’t be afraid to use humor for a more playful ending as well.

Costumes and props are central to Halloween. Dress up with your friends to create frightening-looking characters, and film a bone-chilling video around them. Be sure to find a location that adds to the haunted vibe.

PROJECT RULES: Please add the#WHPspooky hashtag only to photos and videos taken over this weekend and only submit your own visuals to the project. Any tagged photo or video taken over the weekend is eligible to be featured Monday.

For more examples and inspiration, check out blog.instagram.com.

Video by @sandynicholsonphoto