How is this orange flare achieved?

Max Field · August 31, 2018

I have a project in which I need to replicate the title effects from the classic MTV diaries.

The part which has a lot of it is at 45 seconds, but sporadically occurs throughout.

Every time I try doing an effect like this on my own, it just ends up looking... contrived. Does anyone know of a resource or method of shooting to achieve little title resources like this orange flare?

Thanks, I'm really in a pinch on this one.

Stuart Brereton · August 31, 2018

That's a film light leak, usually caused when the film mag wasn't sealed properly, or was damaged. There are plenty of Film Damage plugins which can simulate it. If you want to try it yourself, you can try creating a highly defocused orange shape in Photoshop or similar and add it as a video layer, then experiment with the layer blending styles. You may be able to find some pre made shapes on the internet. Try googling Light Leak Overlay

Max Field · August 31, 2018

Thanks I was staring at this for hours and couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

timHealy · September 1, 2018

To add to Stuart's comment, It happened a lot using daylight loading spools if you did not use a darkroom or a changing bag. the first and last few layers of film got a good blast of unfocused light.

If you wanted to get real creative you could open a roll of film on a core in the dark and flash it. Now that Ive mentioned that, some DP's once pre-flashed rolls of film evenly by the lab for certain looks.