Nothing this last week ( I was directing all week) but a few the week before - ramping up to Halloween.... pumpkin crawling across news ticker - pumpkin or ghost wipe HOWEVER, last year one of my effects made You Tube..well actually the prank that one of our reporters pulled on our anchors. Clip made it to the network (ABC), CNN, Japan and the UK. Take a look.. Don TD/Director News10 - Sacramento, CA

I made a DME Wipe that does the wavy, foggy, "dream sequence" thing ... just used it a few weeks back when we did a story about "Halloween Horror Nights" at Universal. ;-P

[quote="AJR"]Last year, I busted out the boxed DME wipes on the 8k. Nothing like a good ripple wipe to get to those "spooky" segments (because you know... there's so many of them in business news). I've also gone into the vid proc menu and tweaked the hue of certain wipes for one off things to match the occasion. Orange for Halloween, green for St. Patty's day, etc... The best though was a few years ago at my old job. The senior TD issued a challenge. We had a still of some lighting guy standing in front of a green screen. The challenge was to kill him in the most unique ways possible using a 4k and a DVEous... no other external devices or stills. It all had to be in one pass. We had guys firing switcher arrows at him, saws chopping him in half, hammers smashing his head. It was really funny. Curt, are those clips still in Thunder or are they long gone?[/quote] Ahhhahah, Good Times

We've pulled the Disney effect and I use it at home for trick or treaters too. Recorded a few costumed characters, one at a time, side lit with black bkgd. Adjust the proc for B&W, even defocus a bit. They can walk, point, whatever - slowly & delibertly. Now take that clip and "project it" onto glass in front of the camera. It's more believable than a chroma-key, you could even do a LUM key and not clip it in all the way if you don't have a projector. Now take that clip home on a looped DVD, (or a series of them with 10-20 of black between them) and project that on your front window. Leave a low wattage light on in the back of the room so trick or treaters can see in, but the ghost (or scary train conductor in my case) appears in the window. I added another character this year, so I'll project that in another room. The characters may take some time so save it for next year with Friday coming up so soon. Scott

Last year, I busted out the boxed DME wipes on the 8k. Nothing like a good ripple wipe to get to those "spooky" segments (because you know... there's so many of them in business news). I've also gone into the vid proc menu and tweaked the hue of certain wipes for one off things to match the occasion. Orange for Halloween, green for St. Patty's day, etc... The best though was a few years ago at my old job. The senior TD issued a challenge. We had a still of some lighting guy standing in front of a green screen. The challenge was to kill him in the most unique ways possible using a 4k and a DVEous... no other external devices or stills. It all had to be in one pass. We had guys firing switcher arrows at him, saws chopping him in half, hammers smashing his head. It was really funny. Curt, are those clips still in Thunder or are they long gone?

Obviously, if you can get something animated it will beat this, but I've made a simple effect in the past using two stills: one is a jack o lantern with the eyes/nose/mouth dark and the other still is with those areas an orangeish color. A timeline that runs a loop going between the two gives a nice flickering jack o' lantern. If you need a picture of a good jack o' lantern my three year old just helped with her first one! Sean

A long time ago at my first station, we would have the weather guy where a chroma green suit and he would do the weather with a floating head and hands. This was 20 years ago, so not exactly a new idea, but we had a blast doing it.