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Ghostlight: only what moves, glows
Primary Effect
Original effect: Ghostlight — motion extraction with a cyan-to-magenta glow trail.
Project Description
What if only motion could glow? ✨
Ghostlight is an experimental motion extraction effect that transforms movement into light. Static elements fade into darkness while moving subjects emerge in glowing cyan and magenta, leaving behind a vivid trail that emphasizes every movement.
Created with the invideo Editor agent, the effect uses a layered combination of delayed footage, difference blending, glow, color treatment, and screen blending to isolate motion while keeping the subject recognizable.
Creative Process
I started with a licensed Pexels stock clip (video 4990427) featuring a ballerina twirling in a cream tutu against a dark staircase. The contrast between the dancer's movement and the stationary background made it a suitable starting point for motion extraction.
Rather than manually keyframing the effect frame by frame, I described the intended visual result in a single prompt. The invideo Editor agent built a layered effect on the timeline using a 10-frame delayed copy blended with Difference, an adjustment layer for glow and cyan-to-magenta color treatment, and the original footage mixed back in with Screen blending at 20%.
I then refined the effect using natural-language instructions:
Increased the glow intensity to 140.
Set the original footage mix to 20%.
Extended the motion trail from 4 to 10 frames.
Trimmed the clip to its strongest 8 seconds (4–12 seconds) and added 0.5-second fades.
The longer trail makes the magenta afterimage more visible during the dancer's spin, while the cyan highlights help separate the motion from the dark background.
What This Project Explores
Ghostlight explores how AI-assisted video editing can turn a simple visual idea into a stylized motion effect through natural-language direction and iterative refinement.
The final presentation includes the source footage, the finished effect, a screen recording of the agent building and refining the effect, and playback inside invideo Editor. The voiceover is my own.
invideo Editor is free to try.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DebFoEwyBbJ/?rpxt=dWpieDVtOWNicXdx
invideo.io
GHOSTLIGHT
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