How to film elements for compositing?

tmnt

tmnt

King of Australia
I have a HVX so color sample's pretty good for green screen (is smoke done against black?)

Just wondering if anyone knows of a detailed tutorial or has some good info on how to capture practical fx. I'm thinking blood bursts, dust, etc. I know you can download some of these elements but I would like to do my own.

I would like to have the elemts in a file format so I can import them straight into AE and play with them without keying out bg - like how they're done on VideoCopilot.

Ian
 
In general, smoke and similar elements are filmed in negative space to be comped over footage using add (or other) blending modes. Fire is the same...water can be shot against white and used as a luma matte, etc.

Blood splatter doesn't necessarily need to be filmed "splattering"...for instance, in 300, some of the blood in one of the earlier shots is balsamic vinegar spilled on paper scanned in the computer and manipulated in 3d space in AE.

For clouds you can get cotton balls and take still photos against a black background then use add and mesh warp to create convincing looking clouds.

While shooting it's all about getting solid, clean source footage. Having an HVX is a leg up, but it still needs to be well lit and as noise free as possible.

There's all kinds of tricks out there, you really just have to think about it a little. Most visual effects are born out of experimenting with things other than a computer and a little ingenuity.
 
I'de like to add that with the HVX you can shoot up to 60 fps, something I would take advantage of. You can always speed up the footage.

For effects like blood spatter, get a piece of green poster board and take your red blood elements and spatter them on it. keying that should be a breeze.

For lighter effects, as others have mentioned, a black background is key, as is lighting the elements. I would try using lights on the floor in front of the black background, pointing at the camera (not into the camera, just at it out of view) and that way, steam, smoke and things like that will be fully backlit and easily compd.

For fire elements, I dunno what to tell you except use no lighting, but have your iris set properly for the intensity of the flash, and then put gunpowder, gasoline, or whatever on a black table, back away, and light it. A transparex plastic piece in front of your camera would be important to say the least, but not so far away that the camera itself can be illuminated by the element and reflect in the plastic, showing the camera. That was an odd last sentence, and the best illustration of such would be Indiana Jones, Raider's of the Lost Ark, where in the snake pit, you can see the reflection of the cobra when it rears up.
 
The stuff from video copilot has been prekeyed for you, and thats why it costs money. You will always need to apply a key of some sort to create your own. AEPro comes with a couple of keyers.
 
Guys, thank you all, there's some very helpful info there. I'll give it a shot.

If anyone has anything else to add please do.
 
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