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I have been watching Zach King videos on YouTube (the Vine magic guy) and I'm curious how to edit two shots together so that body movements stay the same, yet an element is brought into the shot. I'm ot even sure what the name for this is.

An example is in the link below. In the first two Vine videos starting at 3:03, he clearly meshes two shots together somehow but the placement of his body stays consistent. Immediately after, he makes it appear as if he pulled a cat out of his computer screen (again, obviously two shots) but his body movements stay consistent.

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Very easy to do, well theoretically. On cut actor freezes his body, friends places the prop - in this instance the cat, on action the actor continues his movement. The quicker and non intrusive the introduction of the prop, the less movement the actor will have and the more seamless the cut will look.

The main thing to remember here is to be prepared to have a lot of takes.. it will take time to get it right.

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  • It would seem there would be another way to do this, is this the only way?
    – AndrettiMilas
    Nov 28, 2014 at 15:28
  • also, a lot of the shots are shot twice on a tripod, making them easier to match up. then in software, camera shake gets added to the whole composite to make it look more realistic.
    – Jason Conrad
    Dec 4, 2014 at 22:25
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There are cameras/apps that can overlay an image over the live viewer. You align yourself as perfect as possible to your old position and continue your movement. You don't necessarily need to stay still while someone dresses you with new props, the way kaljack describes it also doesn't work with scene changes.

Its all a matter of making the right cut and being able to replicate your motions very well. If you would analyze the videos frame by frame you would be able to see a few flaws. Your eye misses a hell lot of details in videos, compared to looking at a still images. Just how regular magic tricks work, you just make everything fast and distracting enough.

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Alternately, you can green-screen what the actor is interacting with and shoot as one continuous action of the actor or you can green screen the actor in to the rest of the shot. Either option requires careful coordination and work, but it is another option in addition to the stop action approach that kaljack mentions.

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