Workflows to key a green screen conversation, with over 100 cuts, key cut by cut?

[Clint Nitkiewiz Hernandez]

I have a 7 minute conversation scene, where there may be over 100 cuts,

all 4 actors are in a car with a green screen behind,

what are some workflows that are quick and effective? I am using FCP and would like to use Shake to do my keying as opposed to AE, I know if I use automatic duck AE might make this process easier, but I prefer to key in shake, I think Automatic duck may be available for shake, but I prefer not to spend the money.

This is my proposed workflow, anyone have any comments or ideas?

Workflow idea 1
- In FCP, export each cut, so I will have over 100 shots,
- Key in my application of choice, shake, ae, etc,
- Export and bring back into FCP
- Seems very tedious in regards of time it takes to export so many individual clips, etc.
- But would this give me the best results in regards to keying since they are short shots.

Workflow idea 2
- I dont have any ideas for another workflow, anybody?

[CaptainMench]

Have you thought about keying the entire angle and then cutting it after you have it keyed? Or if it is already cut, you can key the cut and then import that to FCP, take the sequence clips offline and resync them to the new key'd footage.

What you ultimately want to avoid is any chance that 1) you always have a consistent key and 2) they don't show differently each time you return to an angle.

CaptM

[Clint Nitkiewiz Hernandez]

I just thought there was a proven workflow, but I never seen any tutorials on the subject even though this is probably one of the most done effects in a film. Weird huh?

Yeah its cut already. Im used to doing vfx on shots that are already completed so I edited it first without question. But I think that is better because if I key the rough cut that would be a lot of footage, wasted even due to so many cutaways.

Thanks Ill remember to make sure each key looks just as good as the next, and so on, I guess the 100 cut exporting out of final cut and 100 cut keying in shake is what im going to do, I dont see another way around it.

Now is there any shortcuts to export several clips, I plan on going into the timeline, mark my ins and outs, and export, is there a way to batch this method since all clips exported will have the same output quicktime settings?

[NoahK]

I've done this before- it's actually pretty easy because most likely it is only a handful of camera angles. So you key the first one of each very well and then cut and paste attributes to all other cuts using that angle and drop in the proper bgs. Then go through and carefully tweak each shot til it looks good. Once you nail the first, the rest will be quite easy.

Noah