Removing Product Names from a Movie

mjdorris

mjdorris

Well-known member
Hi All--

I've run across this two times now editing footage for friends. They have a few shots in one movie of a big, bright red cup, with COKE written clearly across the front. Another shot has a whole WALL of brand name products. I was wondering if anyone has any tips/tricks on how to realistically replace these products. Honestly I'd like to just remove the COKE from the cup, and the brand names from the boxes on the wall, without replacing them with something else. How does one do it realisitcally though?
I have been using CS3's clones stamp feature with great success on the steady shots, but for shots with motion, it's been a nightmare. Even going frame by frame painting the cups I can see my lack of skill coming through in just a mess of shifting pixels showing up after a render. CCWire removal won't work as the logos are too complicated and I'm not sure what else to do...

-matt
 
Why would you want to do that.
The real world is full of brand names and so are movies if they are situated in the real world.
Look at any major film - it´s full of logos and brands.
The companys pay a lot of money to get the logo everywhere - so they will not complain.

Frank
 
Actually they do complain. As stupid as it sounds. I don't think most companies would mind but I have heard on more than one occasion of Coke not playing very nice with student films submitted to film festivals.
If it is just a few shots for a few frames, there is a clone stamp tool same as photoshop in After Effects. You could also use the tut above or export as a filmstrip from AE and edit frame by frame in Photoshop. Another option would be to throw a blur over the logos.
Good luck
 
brinks said:
Actually they do complain. As stupid as it sounds.
Click to expand...

Really? That must be a special american thing - never heard of anything like that here in Europe.

George Carlin would probably have said:

"So why did they pay money to get the f...ing logo on the cup in the first place, when they don´t want porple to see it? Doesn´t make any sense, just doesn´t make any sense!"

Frank
 
Postmaster said:
Why would you want to do that.
The real world is full of brand names and so are movies if they are situated in the real world.
Look at any major film - it´s full of logos and brands.
The companys pay a lot of money to get the logo everywhere - so they will not complain.

Frank
Click to expand...

Hey Frank--I know it's stupid but it's what I'm being asked to do. It is what it is.

I talked to the director and he doesn't want any of the footage put up on the web, so I can't post that. I did find an American Idol clip about the same quality on my computer that has almost the same cup in it--so I uploaded that to sendspace. The task is to remove the white coke logo on the cup, and make it look like just a red cup.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vhnoc0

If it were completely steady I would just clone stamp it out and be done with it. The problem I have is when the camera pans up at the end. How do you handle it? Animating mask is do-able, but I have trouble creating a layer that doesn't look completely fake and obvious, even when messing with adding grain and opacity tweaks.

Any help would be great!
 
What I did, was to put a soft blur on the logo only of the object .so you couldn't see the logo or at least couldn't read it. And I just left it at that.
 
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n87ulk

this is the best i can do for now...

i'm really striving for realism here...and i'm totally distracted by the moving mask. maybe i need to be more precise, but it's hard to work without using a high amount of feathering. I tried makign two masks...one big one for the cup at about 50% opacity, and one right over the logo at 100% opacity jsut to try and blend it all in, but it's not really working that well.
 
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4hny7a
this took me about 8 minutes so its not perfect.
How you do it is, paint it or clone it out in photoshop on a seperate layer on a particular frame that shows the whole logo. Import that layer into AE, track the logo, apply the track to a null, goto the frame you painted over, parent the painted layer on that frame to the null. then tweak to it looks perfect.
I left the tweaking out but you get the idea of how well it can work.
another thing is to add motion blur which is easy in AE and something i didn't do this time.
this is one of those techniques that can be used for alot of things, adding set extentions/matte paintings, rig removal or wrinkle removal, basically for a lot of footage where you have to take something out or put something into a shot.
 
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bimdas said:
How you do it is, paint it or clone it out in photoshop on a seperate layer on a particular frame that shows the whole logo. Import that layer into AE, track the logo, apply the track to a null, goto the frame you painted over, parent the painted layer on that frame to the null. then tweak to it looks perfect.
Click to expand...

Hey Bimdas (or anyone else with more experience with me)

I'm having trouble getting the clonestamp to apply to any layer besides the layer i'm drawing from...is there a trick to get it to draw to a transparent layer?
 
well, ignore that previous question, i'm just a photshop newb. I used the lasso to pull out the area i clonestamped.

next question:

after i track the cup, and apply that tracking to the null, i parent my tiff to the null. everything works nearly perfectly except when the camera snaps up. it just seems to push my tiff up. Should I track the cup, or track something else?

Edit:
after tweaking who knows what this is really starting to work. Thanks again, so much!!
 
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you should track the cup if you are replacing the logo on the cup. tracking the logo is probably the best bet. the quality of your track is important so nail it.
also remember to parent the cloned layer to the null on the same frame that you painted it out.
you dont have to use photoshop, you can do it all in AE but i prefer to paint stuff out using brushes in photoshop, its just the way ive always worked.
 
composition > "save frame as"

if you have cs3 or up you can open the movie file directly in photoshop and paint on it.
 
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