How to Make Your Own Lens Flare Effects

I love lens flares, and I have found many cool ones online. But after a while they all start looking the same. So here is a way to make your own. It’s not rocket science, or else I would not be doing it. It just takes a little creativity. Check out the video at the end of this post.

Here’s the work flow:

1) Get clear packing tape, cut off a few strips. Crinkle some up, leave some flat.

2) Get a flashlight, I like to use an iPhone App that makes my phone into a flashlight. The iPhone sort of gives off this greenish color, which makes nice looking flares.

3) Put a wide angle lens on your camera.

4) Put the tape over the flashlight source.

5) Dim lights in room, or turn off.

6) Move the flashlight around the rim of the camera lens. Boom. Your done.

You can always try different color of tapes, change the camera settings, and try different flashlights to get other effects.

Now because you recorded them with a black back ground, you will need to remove the black to make the flares or effects pop. In order to to do this in FCP, you need to change the blend mode to  “SCREEN”. You do this by clicking “CONTROL” while your cursor is on the lens flare effect clip. This gives you a drop down window, then scroll down to COMPOSITE MODE, and select SCREEN. Then the black back ground is gone and the light effects pops. If you want it to pop even more, just add the same layer on top of the first and so on. You can even color correct them, or add some type of glow.