Joe's Filters: Joe's Flexi-Smear

Joe's Flexi-Smear is a part of Joe's Filters, a shareware package of utility and image processing tools for Final Cut Pro.

What it does

Joe's Flexi-Smear pushes and pulls at the corners of the clip, bending and stretching the image. Though essentially a corner-pin distortion, Joe's Flexi-Smear can also take advantage of a potential visual feedback loop resulting in an unpredictable tearing of the image. When tearing is enabled, the effect can produce distortions similar to mylar or Each corner is adjusted with a direction and intensity. Each corner's direction and offset intensity can be randomized over time.

Example Images

original image
examples of tearing distortions

Unfortunately previewing tearing on the desktop will not always match the output on the video monitor prior to rendering. Double check any torn distortions on your video source to be sure of what you're getting.

The Controls

• Intensity (0 - 10)

  Slider to globally adjust the intensity of the effect. This value is multiplied by each individual corner offset and can be used to turn off all the corners at the same time.

• UL, UR, LL, LR (-360 - 360)

  Sets each corner's offset direction. The letters stand for Upper Left, Upper Right, Lower Left and Lower Right.

• UL, UR, LL, LR Intensity (0 - 10)

  Sets how far to offset each corner. This value is multiplied by the overall intensity value.

• Wiggle (0 - 10)

  Randomizes the intensity of each corner's offset.

• Jiggle (0 - 10)

  Randomizes the direction of each corner's offset.

Why Wiggle and Jiggle?

According to Dictionary.com, jiggle generally means moving up and down, while wiggle means moving back and forth. Even though it's still somewhat arbitrary, I decided that adjusting the angle was back and forth, therefore jiggling. Adjusting the intensity moves the point back and forth from the center, so it's called wiggling. Jiggle comes before wiggle because this mirrors the angle and intensity controls from the rest of the filter. This also helps for remembering which is which.