I'm attempting to do something like this with a one camera shoot on sticks using split screen? The host in the foreground with players to his left making crazy shots into a basket that is on the host's right. I was thinking I could just split the screen to the right of the host. The players would shoot high and out of frame and the split would show the ball going through the basket. Any and all advice would be very much appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVTo8hopFZg

I guess I'm all alone on this one.

A last feeble attempt for advice...I'll even take "Don't even try it" as advice.

my feeble attempt would be to have several layers with masks, doing something along the lines of what you described.

my feeble advice... GO FOR IT!!!! worst case you fail a few times, but it's obviously doable, right?

Looked to me like the original could have been carefully framed to conceal a "shooting double" sinking the impossible shots... timing would be fun, but certainly not impossible to create the illusion in a "practical" way.

Far moe likely is masking a series of layers and some digital trickery... after all this is 2008! Don't believe everything you see!

Bill & Dave thanks, it seemed like it could be done. I'm glad others thought the same as well. Thanks again.

Well if by "camera on sticks" you mean the camera being static on a tripod, making this would be very very easy. Since the camera is not moving, you can just film the player shoot at the basket, and then have someone on a latter throw in the ball one by one afterwards. Then you edit the scene so that its timed accordingly, and simply mask out the ball he is throwing if needed, and mask in the ball that hits the basket.. Just the ball and the basket, not half the screen.

Well, I did go for it and here is the result. Please post any comments...good or bad...here and not on the youtube page. Thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GFGPqdpEAk
Let's see if this link works.

After looking I am guessing the throw at least at the end was just a CG ball on the original commercial.
where is the result?

Looks realistic enough to me, at least as much as the compressed uTube file shows.

Care to tell us?

Great job! I'm guessing you just used a few masks?

Masked out the area by the hoop, but the difficult part was that the shoot happened at the end of a very busy day for the player, so he really only had time for one attempt of each shot. In some cases where the players shot came back into the scene with the interviewer, I had to export that sequence as still images and remove the ball from each individual frame in photoshop.

On one viewing the only thing that jumped out to me was after the final trick shot the net is moving and then suddenly stops.


-A

I can't watch youtube at work...but I will check when I get home. Also Lorne, I sent you an email!

-JS

Good catch Andrew, I totally missed that. I think I was so focused on the ball and the my deadline was approaching fast. If I only I had more time.

Hey Lorne just checked out the vid. Great Job!

Thanks John,
I had hesitations because the day itself is very hectic and I'm a one man show. Just getting the player, the court, and a little time for setup was a tough task. Thanks again.

wow ... your video made it in one of yahoo's top four headlines. I had a feeling it was going to get a lot of attention. good going ...hah now everyone is going to yell at each other about how fake it is... i wonder if anyone else is going to catch the net on the last shot freeze.

Yeah, it's crazy. After Andrew's catch with the basket snapping into place after the last shot I couldn't believe I missed that, but it seems like a little controversy is not such a bad thing. The way I look at it's like watching a magician; you know it's all just an illusion, but it's still entertaining.