Creating a Living Photo in Fixel’s Cinemagraph Pro

Advancement in camera and editing technology have helped create a new form of imaging: animated portraiture. Animated portraits (also called living portraits or flixels) are the mesmerizing combination of still and motion photography. While these composite films cam be achieved with typical editing software, Fixel has developed Cinemagraph Pro that is specifically designed to create animated portraits effortlessly.

Austin hybrid photographer Giulio Sciorio walks photographers and filmmakers through the process of creating an animated portrait in this Cinemagraph Pro tutorial. Cinemagraph Pro has useful live-masking feature that allows users to edit their flixels in real-time. By simply shooting a short video, importing it, and selecting a range of motion, users can quickly add a mask and create a seamless flixel to share.

Continuous lighting is essential in creating animated portraits. For this animated portrait for Mitch Stone Essentials, Giulio uses two Skylux LED‘s modified by two Rapid Box XL softboxes to illuminate his subject. The Skylux is flicker-free and daylight-balanced create a constant high-quality output for both photo and video applications. Giulio then animates the shine on his subjects hair by lighting with an Ice Light LED. Like the Skylux, the Ice Light is flicker-free and daylight-balanced. Weighing under 2 pounds, the Ice Light is extremely useful when creating unique lighting effects like this.

Lighting Gear in Action: