Green Screen Test

J.R. Hudson

J.R. Hudson

Spirit Animal
This is dirty; lacking in composition, framing and proper lighting. I was running out of sunlight; threw up a Green Screen behind my truck and had the little monkey jump in. Prior to this I had driven around my block with my DVX pointed out the window sitting on a bean bag.

CGT.jpg


I can already see what does and does not work for this effect; proper lighting on my subject especially with backlighting would really help; Also, the sun was casting an orange glow and it added some yellow into my Green Screen which I had to take out in Vegas. I'll be doing more test's today; color correction using the Bullet. :beer:

Comments and suggestions are welcome; I am wanting to figure this out.

Right Click Save As Please

Also, admittedly, it looks much better if you select MOVIE from the Quicktime menu and make it HALF SIZE. :lipsrseal :undecided

http://outlandpictures.com/movies/GreenCarTest.mov
 
Dude, I was cracking up. I have all this footage of him climbing around the cab, on my cell phone, leaning out the window yelling at phantom drivers; and then I flashed forwarded to when he is 16 and was ... Oh man.
 
Funny! Gotta love Cash.

Did you apply a Chroma Blur? You might want to try it -- will get rid of some of that artifacting along the edges.
 
No I did not! Thanks for the tip David. Looks much better smaller than the file size opens.

Where do I find this in Vegas?
 
Not sure where you'd get chroma blur for Vegas, but there's an option built into FCP, and several worthy 3rd party downloads for it.

The limits of DV really shine with green screen. (sigh)

Good work though John, love the lighting.

-CJ
 
I just did a blue screen piece last night just for the hell of it.

I'm not sure about the availability of keying plugins for vegas, but with premiere, there are many tricks you can employ to get the best out of your screened footage.

Rather than applying the "blue screen" plugin, I'd suggest using the chroma key plugin, which allows you to eyedrop a color off of the screen which gives you more control over the color/contrast separation.

Something I found out last night: Rather than keying it RIGHT over your backmat, key it over a SOLID blue (or green) color block, and run the chroma process again. This helps. You get more of an edge definition without as many jagged edges. Once you've compressed the new clip, key it over the back matte.

I think the key to compositing is evenly-lit screens.

My blue screen is some bright blue cloth that I bought at walmart, and I just pin it tightly to my wall. For lighting, I have 3 5$ photo lights. I use foamcore as bounce cards, and plastic sheeting (for painting) hanging on coat hangers to act as a diffuser.

It's a REALLY primitive setup, but it worked really well.
 
One thing that I always like in a fake driving scene is when the lighting on the subject mimics what would happen in reality. For example, at night it's nice to see them hit by the occasional street light. And in your example it'd be nice to see some shadows cast on him from trees, telephone poles and oncoming traffic. The shadows don't even have to be particularly realistic. It's just that your eye is expecting to see some variations on the subject. You could just move some things in front it the light like a rake or a box or a stick. It's the little things that the eye notices when they're absent. The best would be to coordinate a shadow of an oncoming car with the sound effect. When it comes to suspending disbelief, the brain is a sucker for good sound effects.
 
HAHA, thats ****in funny! hes like most of the drivers in LA already!

the only thing i would say would be to blur the edges of the matte, so that they didont have as much aliasing.

edit: actually another way to maybe hide the edges would be to blow out the background a bit so that its flares over the edges...know what im sayin?
 
Haha, great test man... I would agree though, try to blow out the outside shot, b/c the edges are a little harsh. Any kind of movment in front of your lights will greatly improve the shot as well.

Damn, I just quoted what has already been said...

I think the reason it looks semi-awkard (to me) is that you normally dont see this shot in movies... The camera is normally inside the car, aimed at the driver or passenger. Maybe try that for a second take?

Post an update as soon as ya try it again though!
 
John, that's awesome! I see what you mean about trying to get your son to sit still for .2 seconds. LOL

Looks like your green screen tests are coming along quite well. Keep it up, and keep us in the loop.
 
John,
That really looks good, I'm impressed!
You can find Chroma Blur in the Vegas5 Plug-in Chooser, its a video event FX plug.
 
Thanks everyone for watching and giving some insight to what would work better; I will take all of these into consideration on the next test (Tomorrow after work); including composition, shadows and proper lighting to mimic background plate as well as Post Blue corrections and Aliasing!

Thanks! He's my little filmmaker monkey.
 
John,
It is I...All knowing, all seeing master of light...Uhh...I mean Ted
Funny Stuff...On your next test....Cross backlight the little guy...2 backlights on 45 degree angles.....Use just a fill card off of your backlights for the front light...Then...have a few friends run either branches or their fingers in the direction of the car through the Backlights...(occasionally or it will look like a disco) Then, Post her up...Make me proud Johnny!!!
 
In vegas 5 there is a blur slider in the Chroma Keyer effect. It will get rid of some of the Jaggies. I used to use Speed Razor/Matrox and it did not have this extra tweak.. Sorry if you already knew this.
 
Theodore_Lederman said:
John,
It is I...All knowing, all seeing master of light...Uhh...I mean Ted
Funny Stuff...On your next test....Cross backlight the little guy...2 backlights on 45 degree angles.....Use just a fill card off of your backlights for the front light...Then...have a few friends run either branches or their fingers in the direction of the car through the Backlights...(occasionally or it will look like a disco) Then, Post her up...Make me proud Johnny!!!
Click to expand...

I will make you proud Master! (I mean Ted)
 
Here's a thought I have on chroma keying. Maybe I'm on crack, but I think the ideal camera would have 4 or 9 times as many pixels (2^2 or 3^2) as your final format. I don't know why I think that but it just seems like that's the best way to preserve detail (like hair) while eliminating artifacts around the edges. Does that make sense or am I just an idiot (yes, no, and 'both' are acceptable answers)
 
Blowing out the background just looks bad to me. Lucas did that too much in Ep I and II. It seems that the shots from the newer Star Wars films that looked the best are the ones with diffused and/or darker background lighting (like Padme on the robot assembly line in Ep II and Wookies in the snow in Ep III - at least in the trailers). I'm rarely satisifed when directors try to chromakey someone into a bright outdoor background scene for some reason. They usually have a hard time matching mother nature's lighting techniques. I guess our eyes just know what to expect from natural outdoor lighting so it's harder to trick us in that setting.

Does anyone else notice that?
 
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