Glitching your videos these days seems to be all the rage. You’ve seen it promos, trailers, tv shows, and web videos. The artistic application of malfunctioning video has become a trend in motion graphics, and it seems there are many options to achieve these effects. I’m going to highlight a few options that give you the ability to glitch your videos without much effort. There are ways to glitch and distort your videos using native filters and more. However, these options I plan to highlight don’t require much from the user.
Rampant Design Tools Distortion Toolkit
A new toolkit from the talented creators at Rampant Design Tools, you get over 2500 elements to play with, which include the following: 8-bit effects, Heavy Damage, Analog Effects, Glitch Effects, and more. The best part is you can purchase these elements in different resolutions ranging from 2K-4K which gives you more pixel freedom than 1080p. All you have to do with these elements is drag and drop and you are good to go. You can definitely add more creativity to using these elements by doing your own transform and distort effects, and apply clips from the kit to help enhance an effect. The opportunities are endless with this toolkit. Don’t take my word for it. Take a look at the impressive promo below to get a taste of how awesome this kit is.
A plugin created by After Effects guru Andrew Kramer, Twitch gives the user the ability to control the chaos they insert into their videos. Although this plugin only works in After Effects, the options users have available to them are quite astounding. Twitch users can utilize the plugin to create stylistic video effects for motion graphics and visual effects. You can easily create RGB Split effects, transitions, frame distortion, and more. This plugin has been a go to for AE users when they need to introduce chaos into their videos. Watching the promo below will give you a better idea of how awesome Twitch is.
The folks at Digieffects created this bundle of plugins a few years ago, but people still go to them when they want to non-destructively destroy their perfect footage. The Damage bundle includes:
- Aged Film
- Artifact
- Blockade
- Destabilize
- Interference
- Overexpose
- Skew
Each plugin has its purpose in messing up your video. With Aged Film, you can make your video look like they were shot years ago. Artifact gives your video a posterized look with analog blocks popping all over the screen. Interference will give your video that static interference your TV gives you when the cable is disconnected. Overall, this plugin bundle offers a great deal of glitch and distortion effects that can act alone or be combined for a great effect.
A soon to be released plugin from Red Giant under their Universe package, these plugins give users the ability add Glitch to their videos in the form of a transition or an effect. Since it hasn’t been released yet, there isn’t much I can say. However, this video by After Effects guru Aharon Rabinowitz showcases how great Glitch will be when it is released.
These are a great collection of options to glitch your videos. You can go the drag and drop route with Rampant Design Tools or use plugins from Videocopilot, Digieffects, or Red Giant. Overall, you don’t have to try to manually glitch your videos if you are on a deadline. Check out these options for yourself and figure out what works best for your workflow.