B&W Person with Rest in Color

[CaptainWhacky]

A friend of mine is about to shoot a short film and she wants to have it where there is an imaginary person that the main character sees that is from 1930's movies. She wants that imaginary person in B&W like a 30's film while everything and everyone else will be in color. Any idea how we can pull this off without using green screen. I have access to After Effects and Motion. Any help is appreciated.

[maverickstunts]

Here are two tutorials. I haven't tried them, but this may be what you want.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/tutorial/pleasantville
http://www.lafcpug.org/tutorials/basic_pleasantville_look.html

[Huy Vu]

Put 2 copies of the same scene on top of each other. Desaturate the top layer (this will be the person that's B&W). Draw a mask around the person. This will cause the bottom layer to be shown which is still in color. Animate the mask as the person moves.

This is a time consuming process so my advice is to keep the blocking simple. Don't have them waving their arms around or running fast because you'll have a hell of a time adjusting the mask. Slow, broad movements (or even having them just stay there) is best.

[CaptainWhacky]

Put 2 copies of the same scene on top of each other. Desaturate the top layer (this will be the person that's B&W). Draw a mask around the person. This will cause the bottom layer to be shown which is still in color. Animate the mask as the person moves.

This is a time consuming process so my advice is to keep the blocking simple. Don't have them waving their arms around or running fast because you'll have a hell of a time adjusting the mask. Slow, broad movements (or even having them just stay there) is best.

That was what I planned on doing. I was just really hoping that there would be an easier way that someone would know. Thanks for the help though.

[NickJushchyshyn]

For Pleasantville, (in addition to the visual effects work) they actually did use gray makeup (and sets) for many of the scenes. If you can use gray makeup and clothing on set, then you'll have an easier time touching up the subtle bits of color that end up showing through when you get to post.

If you can't do this, then do whatever possible to avoid skin-tone colors in the wardrobe and set, except for the 30's character, which should be wearing gray or skin-tone hues. This way, you'll have a shot a actually chroma keying at least some (maybe most) of the the character to gray.

Hope this helps.