how to question. ipod commercials
 

This weekend I'm working on a spoof spec of the ipod commercials. I've got access to a green screen which i'll be shooting on, but I've discovered the technique I was going to use to duplicate the silhouette effect isn't going to work. Can anyone share some insight as to how their effect would be achieved?

Can't you shoot against green screen, key out the green for another color, and then lower the brightness (or gama) all the way of the person, therefore making them totaly black?

You will have to rotoscope the white cord in for every frome, however.

Rather than rotoscope, you can film them in front of a green screen, but paint the Ipod and cord bright blue. Then you can key the green to take out the background, key the blue to be brilliant white, and then drop the gamma or whatever else on the figure to drop them out.

There are some threads around here about the making of Sin City... they did a similar thing with the bandages, and with the yellow from the Yellow B___. It may be really tough with those thin cords though...

Good luck, sounds like a blast. Post what you get.

the problem is that i don't have access to software that can key out the green that well...avid sucks, premiere sucks, and even after effects i always get a green halo around the person being shot. this is on a news set by the way so the lighting is pretty solid

If you're getting a "green halo around the person being shot" it's becuase you have them too close to the screen.

Jay

isn't DV pretty bad for chroma keying anyway? Due to the 4:1:1 color space?

Why do you say that Premiere Sucks, I've used it for green screen and no problem? Do you know how to use it? Just learn how to use it.

ok so with more experimentation i've got 2 ways to achieve my effect.

one involved reshooting a sample image further from the green screen. premiere seemed to like this much better with some adjusting of the green key. i duplicated my keyed out layer, (on the top layer) dropped the brightness to -99 and dropped the opacity down a hair. with the color version underneath it gives it a little depth.

the second way is editing each frame individually in photoshop and doing the same thing.

now my problem is getting that damn ipod in there. since its bright white and i'm dropping all the color out it disappears. any suggestions around rotoscoping it in?

thanks for all the help so far

Without coming right out and saying what I'm thinking....generaly it's not the tool that sucks.

The fact that you are getting a green halo kind says it all... "My house is crooked because my hammer sucks."

as i've said i've already got around that problem. however, the software being used is not the best either. i've been able to tweak premiere to get me what i want. the avid just plain blows. this is not me, its just a damn fact. the 50K machine i use at work daily is HORRIBLE with green keying. apparently this has been fixed in their new ADRENALINE line that i'll be seeing later this year. regardless, affordable software that we all can purchase is maybe par/sub par with its ability to do it WELL.

anyways, i have a new problem now. can anyone shed some light on this predicament?

Chris,

You might want to have a look at DVMATTE PRO. It's a $199 plug-in for FCP or After Effects. There is a free demo download so you can try before you buy.

http://www.dvgarage.com

Look in the products section under compositing.

-gb-

Perhaps you could mask out the ipod before you drop the color? A "select>color range" command may be able to isolate it as long as you have no other white in the scene. You may need to use the levels command first to bring the brigtness of the ipod/cord up. It may be easier to just do a variation of this and seperate the ipod/cord to another layer. The steps I have described could be done with an action in photoshop so you could apply the action to a folder of stills exported from the sequence, then reimport the resulting psd files. That's off the top of my head. If I think about it more I may come up with a better solution, or perhaps someone else will offer a suggestion.

It's not going to be easy for you to get the iPod regaurdless of how you do it. Green screening with bluescreened iPod or what have you unless it's a close up or on super nice HD.

This is my test of the iPod commercial. Mistakes I made: My green screen material (posterboard) was too reflective and some green values ended up on my pants so I ended up keying part of my pants. I also messed up some of my aspect ratios aswell. ooops. I could have worked more on it but for 2 ish hours in After Effects I'm happy with the results.

I used the Key Light plugin in AE.

http://s92184254.onlinehome.us/webipod.mov

To make a short story long, I will add this post to provide NO INSIGHT, but perhaps a moment of entertainment.

Well, my experience with chroma-keying is EXTREMELY limited thus far - and I am only now beginning to read up on working with such along with FCP - but your silhouette reference got me thinking about my very first 'experiment' with a screen - and it included a silhouette as part of the clip - although REALLY CRAPPY!!!

About a year and a half ago I got an idea and borrowed an analogue VHS-C camera with composite out. In the middle of the night I asked my wife if she wanted to help me make a movie. We grabbed a blue tarp from the back yard and cut a hold in it. (see the clip and you'll see why.)

About hour later, all our shooting was done and I spent about 90 minutes editing it the next afternoon. I'm pretty sure I used iMovie 3 along with a chroma-key plug-in from GeeThree.

After cutting it, I realized it needed just a little something extra, so I quickly added in the silhouette effect by shooting a closeup of my mouth profile in front of a white wall. I turned the contrast up all the way and layered it in with a plug-in - It gave me that really cheesy effect from 'The Electric Company' circa 1971 - only my version is far crappier.

The clip is here:
http://homepage.mac.com/lunarparcel/...Theater78.html
Have patience, it takes a minute or so to get to the keying.
-Jon