Chroma Key Help

A

airforceguy

Active member
In a feature I will be shooting next year (a comedy), there is a couple of scenes of a ghost that is afraid of the dark, so he smokes a cigarette in an apartment at night for the light.

I think I can dress someone up in green or blue and key them out to get the desired floating cigarette affect, but what happens when my person has it in his mouth or holding it between his fingers? How will it affect the shot? It seems to me there will be dead spots on the filter (when in his mouth), and around it when it is being held.

Any advice how to get around it?

Thanks in advance,
Paul
 
Hi,

It might be done in several parts, the cigarette on a stick with a pin, the smoke in a keyed plastic bottle lined up over another green screen to capture the smoke puffed out.

The effects mixed down.

Good luck.
 
If it's going to be dark than you're missing your best option- hide everything! Why not have a black suit instead of chroma green. As for the mouth, why not rig something with wires so that it can float w/o someone holding it? You may also need to rig something up to simulate a person taking a puff.

If you did this, I would definitely shoot the smoke as a second pass.
 
as above but (i.e. sig on mount) and

just shoot without any greenscreen, just make sure you have a good clean backplate shot, Or if you want it to be in a dark black scene (i.e. all black except the cig) then shoot the actor againt a greenscreen, replace the bg with black or backplate and then roto out the guy leaving the cig only.
 
or maybe shot the background and then shot the cigarrete in a greenscreen. Then remove the greenscreen and lay it on top of the background.
If the ghost is smoking you should also consider adding some smoke to the cigarrte, using some stock smoke that you may find around the net (detonation films is a good place to look for).
 
Wait a minute, how are you going to simulate the smoke going into his lungs? Oh, wait, that 's the Invisible Man. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Wow! Thanks guys. You gave me some ideas I hadn't thought about. I like the wire thing and hadn't thought about it or the cigarette in front of the green screen (KISS).

What if I used a cigar instead (it already has a hole in it) and stuck a small tube in it and a wire throught the tube to stead/control it. This would allow me to smoke it from the other end of the tube creating smoke and burning from the other end.

One more thing. If I go the cigarette in front of the green screen route do I shoot it in the same moonlight thought the window lighting as the rest of the scene or do I shoot it in normal/brighter light?

Anyone.
 
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when you film greenscreen you should try to replicate as well as you can the background footage lighting (light direction and color). If you shot brighter you still can correct it after applying the chroma key.
 
While we're at it.

I have to shoot about 27 pages/minutes of footage in a limo, which will take about 6 days of shooting at $60 an hour, about $700 a day, to rent a limo.

Is there a cheaper/chroma alterative?

Can I Chroma an entire limo (enterior)?

If so, how? Would I need actual seats, door, etc, or what?

Is it worth it (pros and cons)?

Anyone?
 
I'd look for a car with a similar interior to a limo, after showing the character getting into a real one. Maybe look around for someone selling a limo or similar car? They'd probably let you rent it out for much less than the cost of hiring one with a driver for a company.
 
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