Green Screen & Aquarium Inhabitants ?

K

Kharn

New member
G'day

For a while now I have been attempting to figure out a way where I can record an Aquarium inhabitant, say a fish, swimming through the tank but be capable of "extracting" the fish only or by completely changing the background and everything else in the aquarium say have the fish floating/swimming over a desert.

What I have in mind is a little more complicated then this but that is the bare essentials of what I want to do.

One idea that I have come up with would be to create a sort of 'green screen' aquarium itself, where I have the bottom and rear of the tank green and nothing else in it except the fish, however I am not sure how reflections would go with lighting etc. I thought it might be best to use the cotton cloth but have it pulled tight over some frames then placed into the tank rather then on the outside, but there is still the front glass to record through.

Either way the idea I hope is simple to understand, film 1 aquarium inhabitant and then place it into another 'video'.

Cheers
Kharn
 
Well the size of the aquarium is restricted to a few feet (3-4feet long) I'm not sure how anything larger could work as I intend to place the fish into this tank and film it so a pool is out of the question...I should of started off by saying this is all for saltwater aquariums...if it were freshwater creatures I could see it being done in a small kids pool...
 
Your green bkgnd should be far behind the subject, so as to evenly light it and to not get accidental fish shadows, and in order to light the subject to match the desert lighting. Otherwise the only safe way to accomplish your goals would be to forget the green screen idea and animate the fish . . . to be able to totally control the situation. By animating you eliminate reflection problems, follow focus problems with such close-ups and the problems of not getting the tank in the shots.
good luck.
 
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I will need to go into more details this evening when I knock off work, its a lot more then a simple fish over a desert (that was just an example...).

Animation just seems like something a little beyond my capabilities...as much as I'd love for my ideas to be easily made into reality....

Ill post a more detailed respond in a few hours along with a video I have already made.
 
Ok now that I am off work and at my PC I can go into more detail for what I am trying to achieve here...

Take a look at one of my videos (there use to be over 300 but I lost my YouTube account, G.mail account and FaceBook account, remade all 3 recently).

As I said earlier, it's a little more complex and detailed then a simple "fish" swimming over a "desert"...

Basically I am an amateur Marine Biologist who spends most of my time filming a single type of unique sea creature called, Stomatopods (Mantis Shrimp) these extremely unique super apex predators are the worlds most formidable living organism weight for weight (nothing their own size can stand against them, for long). It's not one feature about them that grants them the title as 'pound for pound kings and queens' but a mixture of truly other worlds features ranging from the most sophisticated visual system that surpasses satellite, dvd anything man made to date...unfathomable power and utilized in a medium far more dense then air, an abnormally high level of intelligent which allows problem solving skills and deep mutual understanding or recognizing individuals from not only their own kind but other species of creature (cat, dog, human). Along with other crazy abilities that when all added together makes them as I said...the worlds most formidable living organism weight for weight...

Now bare witness to them...(Note this is just a 'normal' video I make often, to show you that which cannot be described...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRVdqsvHshg

Ok so more to the point of why I am here...for the past few years now I have attempted to 'recreate' certain aspects of current films but with a Stomatopod twist, my greatest achievements were a (now lost) string of 3 Trailers to my remake of 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' aptly renamed...'Rise of the Planet of the Stomatopods' however even then the furthest I have ever reached with these trailer remakes is only 'still pictures', so where an ape is running across the room in the original scene, my remake would have a Stomatopod of equal size running across the room BUT in still motion a.k.a about 15-20 individual pictures with extremely short duration back to back creating that 'flip book' effect...I have never been able to create TRUE motion or really create ANYTHING that I have visioned...

So basically what I want to do is be able to "film" my actor/stomatopod in an 'aquarium setup' where I can change the background and surroundings of the film in an editor after the recording, so a Stomatopod as large as a car scurrying down an empty street....

My primary goal with all this, the publicity and popularity for the Stomatopods who are far to unknown and forgotten, it's a crime for such a magnificent creature to be left utterly unknown yet be the inspiration to so many things we see as humans today...it's time for the Stomatopods to claim their spot in the world, it's time...for the rise of the Stomatopod!
 
Nice video on utube and thanks for clairfying your project. You might consider creating a green screen sweep to use inside the tank. Spray a large piece of cell stock with flat forest green paint and bow it to cover the bottom and back of the tank (or something like that) and evenly light it from above. Any floor shadows will look natural in your composite. You should have enough trim adjustment to successfully key out the forest green color.
Needless to say, the camera should be locked down for a stable relationship between the "fish" and the keyed background (unless you have access to a computer controlled motion system). Again, good luck.
 
I can certainly see why animation would be the primary but animation in itself I see as a far more difficult to achieve task considering I have no background in it...but I can certainly see how it could be manipulated into exactly what I want, to achieve the quality I desire I would need a lot of knowledge in animation...

Ill draw up schematics for my green screen aquarium later this evening when I finish work.
 
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