Need suggestions - shot matching

[David W. Richardson]

For a music video I'm doing, we shot a static shot of a girl sitting on a park bench. The idea was to then have the girl step out, and shoot the empty bench. Then in post I would apply a transition to make it look like the girl disappears from the bench. Simple.

Only we forgot to get the shot of the empty park bench. AAAUGGGH!

So I've been back a couple of times, trying to get a new shot of the empty bench that will match up perfectly with the shot we already have of the girl on the bench. So far that's proving to be a challenge. Even using a photo printout of a vidcap of the original shot, I'm having a lot of trouble getting the camera into just the right position to duplicate that shot.

I wish I could print the vidcap on some sort of clear plastic, which I could then tape onto my LCD screen on the DVX100a, and use that as a guide for positioning the camera. Short of that, anybody got any ideas on how I can get this camera position matched to the original?

One of my test shots was fairly close. I tried tweaking it in Premiere 6.0 -- zooming in a bit, rotating a bit -- but the resulting footage looked like crap. (And no, I don't have After Effects.) So I need to just match that original shot.

Any help?

Thanks!

[David W. Richardson]

Oh, and not sound rude, but please don't state the obvious. I KNOW the easiest thing to do would be to bring the girl back and reshoot the shots. But she lives 2 hours away, and is busy as heck. And yes, I could use a different actress, but then I'd have to reshoot one of the OTHER shots -- an over-the-shoulder of our main guy looking at the girl on the bench. That means bringing HIM back as well, which is also not easy. The simplest thing that will have the least impact on people other than myself is to shoot that matching shot I need. So that's my goal. :-)

[Jeff Anderson]

Is there any way to bring a monitor to the location? Then bring the original footage on a deck or whatever its on and a/b the original with the live on the monitor til you get it right.

Other than that my best guess is to bring a print out with you and try to match edges and corners exactly.

How about taking a screen grab of the girl on the bench into photoshop and using the clone tool very carefully and crossfading between the two. If you dont have PS, just go get the CS3 trial from Adobe - it lasts 30 days.

What camera do you shoot on? If its an HVX and the original is 720 then just shoot the bench at 1080 purposely zoomed out a hair from the original and line it all up in post. Better yet just shoot it zoomed out with a digital camera and have way more pixels than you need. I think that may be your best bet.

[David W. Richardson]

I shot on a DVX100a.

I took a printout of the shot with me, but still didn't get it right. There's no electricity there for running a monitor, I'm afraid. That would be a good solution otherwise.

Other ideas?

[mburgh]

Do you know what time of day you did the shot? The sun angle is the most important information - not to be a jerk but you should have made note of the time of day on a camera report for just the reasons you mention. Also, if the weather was different, ie: sunny, cloudy, you should wait until the time of day under simular weather. Hope this helps.

[William_Robinette]

You can walk into many a printing store and buy overhead transparency sheets for your inkjet or laserjet printer.

[David W. Richardson]

I do know what time of day it was, and the weather was sunny. So that's not a problem.

Thanks Bennis! That's probably going to be the best idea. I'll give it a shot.

[Jutberg]

that is going to be quite the task getting an identical shot, like jdaja said maybe even shooting SD and framing a tab bit wider then cropping it in post would be a good option. You'd lose a bit of resolution but it may work. Make sure you get a solid number of shots when you go, or perhaps there is another option for making her disappear like shooting a close up and cutting to that? it might kind of cheesy but Im not sure if thats what youre going for.

[David W. Richardson]

Jutberg, did try shooting just the empty bench and cutting back and forth. You're right, it's too cheesy.

I did print the video frame onto transparency plastic and tape that over the flipout screen, and that got me pretty close -- but not close enough. It's weird. There's a wall a short distance behind the girl. I can get the shot lined up so the bench is in the right position, but then the wall behind it is way off -- probably having to do with the zoom setting, as the walk looks much closer to the bench in my shot than it does in the original.

But if I move the camera closer, then I can't get the bench aligned right -- it's like the bench is wider in my new shot or something. It truly is a royal pain!