I was wondering if anyone knows how to do mimic the light dimming effect in Timberlake’s Sexy Back (the close-up’s of him singing against the white background).

I’m trying to do something similar in post by adjusting the “Track fade to color” envelope. It works well BUT I see a lot of flickering, which I find strange because I’m working with png image sequences and video clips (2-3-3-2 pulldown) in progressive mode/23.976 fps. It looks fine on an interlaced TV but since this will be a web video, I’m a little concern the flickering will take away from the shot.

Anyone knows why this occurs or knows another way to achieve the effect?

Haven't seen the video but you can achieve some great lighting effects using the Bump Map fx plug in Vegas. Start with the Spotlight Up Flat preset then play around with positioning, intensity, focus, ambience etc. You might achieve what you're looking for by using one or more instances of Bump Map.

Check out this thread I started last year for some stills of Bump Map in use.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=79660

Ian . . .

Ian, thanks for posting - I had previously tried the bump map fx but wasn't happy with the results. I rendered out the video and it looks fine on WMP or VLC.

On another note, you did a good job on your music video, illuminating in post with the bump map fx.