How to Create a Back to the Future Time Slice Photography Effect

Photography Tips

If you enjoyed learning how to recreate the Ghostbuster’s proton beam or you’ve just been feeling a wave of 80s movie nostalgia, learning how to mimic the time slice effect from Back To the Future might just hit the spot:

Joey Shanks once again delivers some fascinating insights to how you can create amazing movie lighting effects with next to no lighting gear. Just about every effect he creates is achieved with nothing more than cheap pen lights coupled with long exposures (otherwise known as light painting). Add to that a good DSLR and a decent animation editing program, and the next thing you know, you’re recreating effects that wowed you as a kid.

Shanks uses DragonFrame to do his stop motion animation shooting. Once everything’s taken care of there, he uses Adobe After Effects to finish up. The DSLR he’s using is a Canon 5D Mark II.

By far, the most challenging part of creating this effect is doing the animation sequence, which takes painstaking patience. According to Shanks, once you get going you “kind of get into a groove,” but if you’re the impatient type, this probably isn’t the effect for you.