Epic High Five

A vertical piece for social. Two actors cross an empty parking lot, meet in the middle and clap hands. The whole film exists for a single frame: the impact.

This is an impact effect over live footage, and the problem is timing, not looks. The spherical shockwave leaves the exact point where the hands meet and lasts about a quarter of a second, together with a ring of dust kicked off the asphalt under them. One frame early or late and the effect detaches from the gesture: the viewer cannot say what is wrong, but stops believing it. So the wave is pinned to the contact frame, and the dust rises on the correct vertical for the camera's perspective rather than sitting on top as a smear.