How tough is a fake TV screen to make for a scene?
 

Hey all -

Well I'm editing a scene for a feature shot on the HVX and there's a few shots with TV screens in the window of an electronics store shot at night (but there's plenty of ambient light from neon signs on the characters singles so glow is not an issue) that need to display video that was shot to emulate a news report. I can avoid the dolly shots on the tvs so that I only need to cover stationary shots but is this effect worth trying to pull off or is it better left to send out for fx? The only tricky caveat is my character walks past one of the tv screens in a shot we must keep from her OTS shot. My tools are FCP 5, After Effects 6.5 (on a pc that is) as I know nothing bout motion or shake.

Is this worth it, and can results be believable with a slight glare etc.?

Thanks guys!

Depending on the type of tv, you'll have to account for screen roll with shutter speed, you could shoot the news cast before hand and hook up a vcr or dvd player to the tv's in the window playing that on a loop. Cut to close up on the screen when she looks at the tv screen.

sorry, other than that, just bluescreen it...most tvs r dvd players will go to a blue screen when in standby anyway. Shoot that and overlay the other footage under it punching out the screen using keying softwware.

Both are LCDs, one is wide screen aspect, the other 4:3. The scene has already been shot, it's a tight budget indie for Lion's Gate so there's no reshoots to get a blue screen on them, they are turned off televisions (nothing displayed, just black or dark gray) with white targets on them (marks in the corners and a + in the middle). I assume FCP 5 doesn't do keying? It'd be a job for After Effects?

It shouldn't be too hard of there's not that much movement. Where the character walks passed it would require frame by frame rotoscoping.

Whether or not yopu're going to farm it out is one of those deadline/budget balancing acts. How much will a firm charge ytou for it. It seems like the sort of thing a good effects studio could do in an afternoon, but it would cost you. You could probably do it yourself, but you've got to figure out how, do you have the time?

FCP does do keying, but it's the other effects you'll need in AE in order to make the keyed images gel into the shot.

Try this:

http://www.chv-plugins.com/motion.html

I haven't used this particular plug-in, but do have several others by CHV and they work pretty well. Fairly cheap too!

Thanks guys, I'll check out these options, Dylan - yeah not sure if this is something I want to tackle and potentially be the hero, or end up looking like an ass when the tv effect looks terrible :)

Is the frame static...or does the camera move...do any of the screens get obscured in the footage (actor, car, dog, baby stroller going between the camera and the screens)?

Static shots, but she does move past the camera in one obstructing the tv just for a second...

You could cut to a close up on the screen when she crosses...the rest can just be separate video tracks scaled and skewed to match the screens of the LCDs.