Tracking a “Knock Back” Effect

This time, instead of hiding a part of a shot, you are going to emphasize something. Load the 02 Little Boat sequence. Betty wants to highlight the man in the boat with a circle—but outside the circle, the scene needs to be knocked back, perhaps by reducing the luminance—so that you focus on the boat. (See Figure 7.35.) The boat can be tracked as well. What effect will you use for this?

Figure 7.35 What Betty wants.

Let’s try a Paint Effect:

1. Open the Effect Editor and create a rectangle shape that covers the entire picture. Next, use the Color Adjust mode to color-correct the shape so that it is darker and has less contrast.

2. Create a circle shape and apply an Erase effect to it. This is what will be tracked.