To make the heat haze effect was basically a 3 step process.
Firstly I created a layer of fractal noise that evolved over time using an expression. I then used this layer as a displacement map for my main piece of footage. This essentially created the wavering, blurry look of a heat haze.
The second step was creating the watery reflections you often see in the forground. For this i used a range of masks, scaling and blend modes, along with a bezier warp.
The final step was colour correcting to make the warm reds and oranges associated with shooting in hot conditions.
As this tutorial is a little bit more involved than some of others, i have included a higher resolution version to stream. It might take a little bit more bandwith to watch though!! It's at the bottom of this page.
Low Res Version (Running Time: 8 min 54 sec)
Arlo walks through the heat haze.
High Res Version (Running Time: 8 min 54 sec)
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