How Do They Do This!?

WhiteWood

WhiteWood

Carbonite Member
I was just watching Will Smith's 'Miami' video. I haven't seen it in FOREVER, since before I was interested in directing.

After watching it with my new eyes, I see an effect that I JUST CAN'T figure out. You CAN'T miss it. It happens throughout the ENTIRE video.

-One minute the camera's outside, then it's inside but NO ONE moves position. -Or one second he has on black, next his clothes change to white, AS he's walking with no cuts.
- Or one second he's in a car and the NEXT he's in a boat, while doing the same thing.
-Or one second the cameras WAY in his face and the next it's like 10 feet away with no cuts.

The only thing I can imagine is green screen, but it doesn't LOOK green screened... it looks real. Any ideas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDp5IP76PeY
 
I think they just knew to remember to have will doing the same thing while the camera was at the same angle. Notice that during those transitions there are frame blending 'morphing' effects that smooths out the minor differences. I would say this was not green screen but just very good choreography, camera matching, and some special effects blending.
 
morphing, roto, some greenscreen I imagine, and creative editing. Also, lots of planning. but it seems that morphing with roto is the most common effect.
 
It's a very well done video. Yeah, careful camera placement and lots of morphing seems to be the recepie of the day here.


Watch carefully at 1:58 - Will suddenly isn't driving the boat anymore.

- Mikko
 
mikkowilson said:
It's a very well done video. Yeah, careful camera placement and lots of morphing seems to be the recepie of the day here.


Watch carefully at 1:58 - Will suddenly isn't driving the boat anymore.

- Mikko
Click to expand...

yes, that's one of the most noticeable changes in the video. they should have keept the face looking to the same place (at least that would be what i'd have done)
 
ilauzirika said:
yes, that's one of the most noticeable changes in the video. they should have keept the face looking to the same place (at least that would be what i'd have done)
Click to expand...


I had to watch twice to notice that... yeah, that was odd. Maybe he just doesn't klnow how to drive. lol

Anywho, what's this 'Roto' that everyone speaks of?
 
WhiteWood said:
I had to watch twice to notice that... yeah, that was odd. Maybe he just doesn't klnow how to drive. lol

Anywho, what's this 'Roto' that everyone speaks of?
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscope

It's not just for tracing live motion stills, but rather any time one has to draw on a frame by frame basis to add, remove, or alter elements.

I am having rotoscope work done coming up to remove a tree line from the background of some shots.
 
To make this sort of thing easier and more accurate, there are systems you can use, for instance the XDCam 350 has a feature where you can do a frame compare by flickering back and forth between what the lens sees and what the frame selected is. This way you can compare the shots and match them up for perfect continuity. I'm sure there are live recording programs that do this as well!
 
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