Any AE gurus available to help with keying this video?

[mrWr0ng]

I worked on a music video in October for a new film production co in San Francisco. They rented my camera from me (I gave them a great deal because my buddy is the director's boyfriend) and AC'd it for them.

They shot the entire thing on green screen, but need a lot of help with the keying. If someone can help, it would be wonderful - I know nothing about it myself, I'm not an editor, but I'd just love for the video to be finished so I can make clips available on my reel.

Here is the ad:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/cwg/260148749.html

You can see a copy of the video there as well.

It's not a personal thing for me, because I think most of their problems comes from uneven lighting on the green screen (I had no control over this, nobody knew me and my suggestions on lighting & camera angles were summarily ignored), but I'd just like to see it finished, and maybe these guys can learn a thing or two from some serious AE powerhouses.

[milksac]

A qwik summary:
"First thing is to get each of the 129 AE projects set up."
"...pull the key, drop in the backgrounds, do whatever other compositing is necesarry"
"Many of the comps will require pretty detailed rotoscoping, and 3D moves in some cases"
"I'm terribly sorry, but there is no pay available for this project. I understand that it is a lot to ask for no money, and that's totally lame, but I'm not being payed either."

This is a joke right?
129 effects shots for free. I think Francis needs to roll up his sleeves and get busy. And when he needs to take a break from the compositing he could spend some time reading a book or two about budgeting for film and video production. After all Entropy is his company, why didn't he budget for compositors?

Sorry for the rant but the business practice of "do this for free it will look great on your reel!", only serves the person that's getting the freebie. It undermines the value of the creative individual that actually do the work.

*end rant*

[oneinfiniteloop]

I agree, this guy is crazy asking that much for nothing...even if he gets people to do all the work, the output will be subpar at best and it'll end up being a waste for all involved. I hope they don't expect some super-realistic comping either, guessing from his post, they have no knowledge on how to properly shoot background plates correctly from matching, etc...

Buy, hey, let us know if the video ever gets done, I'd love to see the final output.

[kai]

Hey i'll do it for free....... PSHAA!

I have to agree with the thoughts above... you're asking for a boatload of free work for nothin. You're most likely going to get A) that in return - no responses or B) someone who has no business on after effects trying their hand on your project and you'll then get - bad product.

If you were asking for some keying tips perhaps or maybe even for someone to do just *ONE* for you as an example for you to see how its done, then I could possibly see people (possibly) stepping up to help you out. Until that point, you're asking for a pipedream to become reality.

[mrWr0ng]

Yeah, you guys are right. I figured it was all pretty much a joke - it's like the video contest for Incubus, but you don't even get a prize for it.

I feel bad for the company that hired them for the music video, because who knows when it'll be done - they shot this in October and this is all they have to show so far.

Not really skin off my back, I just hate to see someone bite so much more than they can chew and get prepared for a royal reaming.

[Isaac_Brody]

Money talks...

[oneinfiniteloop]

Money talks...

And in this case you can hear a pin drop.

[inspire84]

Wow...terrible footage. How can they boast that it was shot on HD. If it looks like shit, it looks like shit. Screw that. If he didn't get payed, he sure had a huge house to shoot all that green screen and equipment...I feel bad for a) the artist and b) the label- if he even has one...Sorry that's harsh i just hate seeing pure crap like this, and them saying "its a great opportunity to add to your reel" pshhhhh. Maybe if i was a blind filmmaker. HAR!

[manglerBMX]

one of the main things i hate about craigslist, its like when you have nowhere else to turn to you post an ad on cl trying to get something for cheap as possible or free. that crap doesn't float in the film/creative world. granted you do come across some good paying gigs off of it. this is not one of them.

[mrWr0ng]

Can you go more into why the footage was so terrible? I had no input on it and would have liked to see more angles and closeups as opposed to medium shots and flat "in front of the camera" shots, but is that the extent of the problems?

I think the first "big" lesson I had to learn was to do close ups, and I'm in the middle of learning the importance of angles, but I'd like to hear more about what's wrong with their work.