I'm trying to achieve the effect shown in the picture using footage of an actor diving and then creating the explosion in blender. I can use masking to get the actor to appear in front of the flames or completely behind it, but can't figure out how to engulf the main character in the flames/smoke as he jumps through it and make him appear through it gradually.
What approach should I take to create this effect without having to create a 3d model of the actor in blender?
Should I be creating a duplicate plane of the footage, create a mask around just the actor and then animate that duplicate plane to move towards the camera through the explosion? Or can this be achieved using just basic masking?