spotlight effect

how do i create a spotlight effect? everything in the background darkened and just a elipse around some one speaking?

Hi.
You would do this, draw a background element, then duplicate it. Draw a filled ellipse in other element. In timeline, create a clipping mask element, drop the ellipse into the mask and indent the first background to the clipping mask effect. Create a colour transform element (outside the clipping mask) and drop in it the second background and make it more darker that the first BG. The result is a BG darker with a ellipse filled with a BG lighter. Next, animate with keyframes. Put the caracter outside the effects in front camera position. Regards. Yoryo.