Can someone help me with a certain effect?

[sequoiajosh]

There is a short film I am working on. It requires the effect of an artificial shadow. The shot consists of a drone zooming out on the ground and a shadow of an extra-terrestrial ship. The ship will not be shown, just the shadow of the ship. I am wondering if there is any way I could do this.

The shot would look somewhat like this, but moving of course, and it would require the shadow to be moving also. Thank you.

[Rick Gerard]

You could camera track the shot and then set a ground plane and origin and add a solid and a camera. You would then set the color of the solid to dark gray, make it big enough to include the entire shadow, use the pen tool to draw the shape and then set the blend mode to multiply and adjust the opacity to get the look you want. You could then feather the mask or blur the layer and animate the position property to make the shadow move over the ground. You just need to keep it on the same plane so be careful with adjusting the position keyframes.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about type Camera Tracker in the search help field and do some studying. Then type blend modes and masks. If you are new to AE please start here:Basic AE