Introduction

"Beam me up, Scotty," has become a part of the American vernacular. We're all familiar with the expression, and we all know what it refers to: the transporter on the starship Enterprise from Star Trek^® and its ability to deconstruct a person down to the subatomic level, transport them through space, and reconstruct them again in another location. We are all familiar with the transporter sound and the transporter sparkles. Recreating this effect, then, requires some faithfulness to the original effect used on the Star Trek television show for it to work.

There are actually two ways to create this effect. One is a complicated process using Adobe Photoshop or a similar program to manipulate a still image taken from Premiere Elements to create a matte of the person or persons being "beamed" up or down. This allows you to create a "beam me up" effect that's true to the television show in that the transporter particles are restricted to the outline of the person being transported. It's complicated, but effective.

However, there's a simpler way to do this that works just as well and creates a true "Sci-Fi" experience, with nowhere near the effort. What is surprising about this effect is that you don't need a greenscreen or any additional software beyond Premiere Elements 3. Basically, in this version, we place the transporter beam in front of the person we're transporting while we dissolve them into the scene (by adjusting the Opacity on the top clip of two nearly identical clips). An added "flash" of light adds a nice dramatic effect.