What to do if you need rain in your shots (but don't want to get wet) [Quicktime Video Overlays]

Rocket Rooster Rain Effect

What do you do if you want to get rain in your shots but don't want to get your equipment wet?

 This article isn't going to change your life in any radical way but it might just make you realise that you can achieve some complex-looking effects much more easily than you think.

Here's an example. It's always raining where I'm writing this, here in the UK. So, of course, any shot you take that doesn't feature rain looks completely unnatural. Well, that's not strictly true, but you can't beat a bit of rain for adding atmosphere to an image.

But how do you do it? You could fix up an array of hosepipes with shower attachments. That would be low tech, and will probably write off thousands of pounds worth of equipment.

Or you could do it the easy way, and find a rain-effect overlay, like this one from Rocket Rooster.

 It's just one example of how much you can achieve with simple, high quality overlays.

Compared with almost every other type of special effect, it's almost unbelievably simple. Just find an effect you like, put it on the track above your video clip in your NLE, and select a "Blend Mode" that works.

The clips come as Quicktime media, and are available in 4K resolution, so you can use them with virtually any NLE.

Here's the moving version of that effect, showing several different types of rain.