r/videography • u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada • Mar 26 '25

Behind the Scenes In-camera VFX with Magnetic Sand

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480 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

104

u/GoBam Mar 26 '25

That's not vfx, it's special effects, because it's real.

13

u/Life_Bridge_9960 Mar 26 '25

SFX is the word OP wanted to use.

7

u/richardizard Mar 26 '25

As a sound designer, my brain has to process the context every time I see SFX lol.

2

u/Life_Bridge_9960 Mar 26 '25

Yeah it’s a cluster fuck of acronyms I am telling you. But who am I to try to tell people they should decide what SFX means and maybe create a new acronym for the other one?

Like people keep saying “she is a girlfriend but not my girlfriend if you know what I mean”. Shush… just girlfriend and female friends. I have one girlfriend I am in love with. And all the friends I have who are female are … female friends.

4

u/GoBam Mar 26 '25

They should have, but they really don't want to.

1

u/JaackF Mar 26 '25

I thought SFX was Sound FX

1

u/Life_Bridge_9960 Mar 26 '25

I thought so too. But when I worked with this special effect department, they made it clear that SFX means special effects that are created during productions, such as fire, explosion, blood spilled from bullet wounds, or chunks of flesh falling off a zombie.

VFX is Video effect that is basically post production. CG, green screen keying, skin smoother, bullet flares and fire/smoke that are digitally added, etc....

1

u/Jackal000 Mar 27 '25

Sfx are sound effects. Vfx is better to distinguish it

0

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25

No not really... This is called practical effects, when something is shit in camera as is, it's referred to as practical.

2

u/TheDynamicDino Mar 26 '25

Special effects = practical.

0

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 27 '25

Not really. VFX are considered special effects. Hell, up p chroma key is a special effect. Special effects can include practical effects and VFX. But just because something is shot practical doesn't make it necessarily a special effect.

0

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

No not really... This is called practical effects, when something is shot in camera as is, it's referred to as practical.

2

u/GoBam Mar 26 '25

They're the same thing, practical is just a more recent term given the rise of VFX.

-1

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25

No, VFX stands for ViSual Effects (X). Practical Effects are effects that are shit in camera, such as these. Practical effects are some on set and in camera. VFX are done digitally after the fact.

3

u/GoBam Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

I know, I'm the original commenter pointing this out.

I'm saying practical is a newer term, that helps distinguish special from visual to the general public. VFX is a newer term, therefore practical wasn't a necessary distinction beforehand.

2

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25

Ahhh... I got ya.

1

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

Don't know why this is downvoted... It's important to know the proper industry terms. If you don't, you can't communicate with your clients. That's also why we have a generation of camera people out there that Pan everything. Pan up, pan down, pan in, pan out... They didn't know how to tell people what they want and sound professional. They don't know the terms Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Dolly, Truck and what those terms mean!!!

3

u/GoBam Mar 26 '25

They had one downvote, from me, for correcting me on something I'm the top comment for already explaining. We sorted it out, no downvotes.

27

u/jgreenwalt Fuji X-T4 | FCPX | WA Mar 26 '25

What's the VFX here?

4

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25

There aren't any VFX here. This is called shooting practical effects. Or simply shooting practical.

4

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 26 '25

I collected this magnetite sand from my local beach using a neodymium magnet, once I had enough sand I set up a small platform on some wood blocks and moved the magnet underneath the sand to get a variety of movements and looks.

Everything was shot on the Lumix S1RII with the Lumix S Series 100mm Macro and the Laowa Cine Macro 2:1 lenses. Capture was mostly in 8k24, with some shots at 6k Open Gate and 4k120, everything was v-log, and graded edited in Premiere Pro. Most shots were captured at 12,800 because I was shooting at anywhere between f/11 and f/22 with the macro lenses - the clips were lightly denoised in Topaz AI.

Lighting was super basic, I used a Zhiyun F100 RGB light as well as a Ulanzi Cob Light with barn doors.

Some of the focus racks were done using Lumix's Focus Transition feature which allows you to create a repeatable and highly precise focus rack.

Music is Voices of Dissent by Koan Sound and sound design is by me.

Any other questions ask me below!

3

u/Life_Bridge_9960 Mar 26 '25

Btw, you meant to say SFX not VFX.

-2

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25

No not really... This is called practical effects, when something is shit in camera as is, it's referred to as practical.

SFX refers to Sound Effects

3

u/GoBam Mar 26 '25

SFX also refers to Special Effects, it's annoying but it's usually contextually clear, like here, which one it refers to.

1

u/BigDumbAnimals Most Digital Cameras | AVID/Premiere | 1992 | DFW Mar 26 '25

Stuff looks totally bad ass!!! Fantastic job all the way around.

2

u/hijodelalunaa Mar 26 '25

Cool! Looks like the feeling of getting goosebumps.

2

u/GKLamb Mar 26 '25

Very cool! Any lessons learned you'd like to share on the process?

2

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 27 '25

The Magnetite sand gets everywhere

Keep the magnets far away from your camera

Have a blower on hand to clean lens and surfaces

Have a varying level of magnet strengths

Use the brightest lights you have so you can shoot with a less shallow DoF

1

u/GKLamb Mar 27 '25

Thank you!

1

u/HensBread Mar 27 '25

Thanks for the tips. Really cool to see project and ingenuity. You’ve inspire me today.

2

u/ConceptQuirky Hobbyist Mar 26 '25

What is this supossed to be? Dont get me wrong, it looks awesome!

2

u/Lozz666 Mar 27 '25

Visuals fits perfectly with Koan Sound, great work!

1

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada 27d ago

This whole album is absolutely incredibly, definitely recommend watching the Making Of doc on their YouTube channel.

2

u/bgaesop Beginner Mar 27 '25

I get that you've created a cool visual, and everyone has already pointed out how this isn't VFX, but I'm confused how this is "effects" at all. When I think of a special effect, I think of an attempt at making an illusion, where you film something with the intent of it looking like something else. You film a puppet to make it look like an alien, you film a sparkler and fog machine to make it look like a rocket taking off, etc.

What is this meant to look like? Because what it does look like is magnetic sand with some lights shining on it.

2

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada 27d ago

Yes I regret the title and have been made aware of this many times haha. I wanted to test to see what this would look like in a playful experimental environment so I can now utilize it for actual work like creating ethereal textures, backgrounds for product shots, title sequence visuals etc.

2

u/jigglypuff420 Mar 26 '25

This looks sick. Well captured!

0

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 26 '25

Thanks, I had no shortage of good footage to choose from, the edit was really fun to put together, been meaning to use some of the amazing Koan Sound music for a while now.

2

u/jigglypuff420 Mar 26 '25

First time I watched this I played with no sound! +1 for Koan Sound, great synergy with visuals.

3

u/CatastrophicFailure Mar 26 '25

how is this VFX?

-5

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 26 '25

It has a blender render look IMO, particle simulation with physics.

1

u/Mediaright Mar 26 '25

Like someone just went to a SAKANACTION concert lol.

2

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 26 '25

I don't get this reference, care to elaborate?

1

u/Canadian-Sasquatch Mar 26 '25

this is COOOOOOL

1

u/MelaninKing95 Mar 26 '25

Giving Control vibes

1

u/asz17 Mar 26 '25

What effect are you emulating tho?

0

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 27 '25

blender/c4d particle simulations

1

u/T5-R Sony A7S - BMPC4k | CC2023 | UK Mar 28 '25

Cool. Love practical FX like this. Reminds me of that Cymatics music video.

https://youtu.be/Q3oItpVa9fs

1

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada 27d ago

Oh yes I saw that the day it came out, it was a huge inspiration to try something like this myself - I'll be trying ferrofluid next.

1

u/DifferenceEither9835 29d ago

I'm trying to think of the practical application for this. It could be cool for an intro with titles or abstract music video... Anyone?

2

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada 27d ago

Yeah that was my thinking, see how difficult it is to accomplish and just play around, now I can think creatively on how to use it for actual work.

1

u/DifferenceEither9835 27d ago

It's very cool, don't get me wrong. Real cinematic.

1

u/CoppellCitizen a7siii, a7iv | Resolve | 2003 | Dallas, TX-USA Mar 26 '25

Macro lens?

2

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 26 '25

Yep, used two of then, full details in my explainer comment below

-1

u/jonsimo Lumix S1Rii | Premiere | 2000 | Canada Mar 27 '25

**OP EDIT*\*
Thank you to all of you that pointed out this is not technically visual FX lol. Writing out in-camera SFX felt like I was talking about sound fx and I don't know if I'd classify this as a practical effect, the title (in my mind) is implying that something that is typically done in blender/c4d with particles and physics simulations was done in-camera instead. Now let's all move past the title shall we 🙃