I have never used it before and haven't had enough experience. I try to avoid things like that at my level. However for a short film, I'm making, I have a problem. There is a shot of an actor with his hand rested against the door. At that point I couldn't shoot the rest of the scene. Our location was taken away. I can't get it back most likely, but trying. I was thinking I could get the same actor and continue the scene with the same background green screened. I will start off from another angle where he takes his hand off the door, that continues from my last. Only it will have to a greenscreened door from before. Could this work, or will it look to fake? Not only do I have greenscreen that shot but other remaining ones as well. A guy will also have to remove something from a desk and the desk has to be green screened, unless I can find a desk that looks exactly like that one. Anything I can do to save my previous footage?
Question about using green screen to fix this error.
- Thread starter ironpony
- Start date
I forgot to mention. I'm afraid the actors might not come back, as that was their last scene. I am waiting for them to get back to me, but want some sort of back up plan, in case. It's a microbudget movie, so finding actors to stick around long has been hard in my experience, and I usually find myself having to shoot within a 'window of interest' as I call it.
clang
Veteran
Do you actually have "clean plate" shots to put into the greenscreen backgrounds, i.e. nice clear hi-res shots of the door, desk etc with the right lighting and no actors in the frame? Preferably not just stills taken from your normal camera footage - those might be ok as general backgrounds (especially if blurred out of focus), but probably won't hold enough detail to be convincing if actors are supposed to interact with them.
I suggest rethinking your shots - e.g. instead of the planned shot with the actor moving his hand off the door, do it as a close-up with his hand out of shot. But of course that may not work dramatically if the door is somehow significant - only you know your script well enough to judge. Similarly, you may be able to do the desk shot as a close-up, showing only the actor's hands and a small part of the desk (hiding the fact that it's not the same desk at all).
Greenscreen is a very powerful tool, but rarely a quick fix, especially if you haven't used it before - it introduces a huge bunch of brand new problems, especially around lighting.
I suggest rethinking your shots - e.g. instead of the planned shot with the actor moving his hand off the door, do it as a close-up with his hand out of shot. But of course that may not work dramatically if the door is somehow significant - only you know your script well enough to judge. Similarly, you may be able to do the desk shot as a close-up, showing only the actor's hands and a small part of the desk (hiding the fact that it's not the same desk at all).
Greenscreen is a very powerful tool, but rarely a quick fix, especially if you haven't used it before - it introduces a huge bunch of brand new problems, especially around lighting.
Well I don't have previous shots from before, so if I go back to get shots for green screen, I won't know the exact position the camera was in compared to last time to photograph the empty room. The door scene is already shot, and it's hard to zoom in or get the shot of the hand out of the way, cause it's shot at angle where the hand is right there sort of. I can see. All the one actor has to do is get up out of a chair and walk around the room. The chair will have to look like the one shot before... I will see about getting the actor back first, before I get too carried away with this possible plan B.
RyanT
Veteran
Okay I wasn't able to do the scene again. The one actor is not available, and I would still like the original scene. Green screen won't work probably, but would it be possible to reshoot the part of the scene I screwed up, then photoshop the background, in with the previous footage? The actor moves his arm, and I keep photoshopping the background into the frame. I will have to take a corner of the window, and flip the image around to make a whole corner window of it though, since in this take the window is further away. So I will have to recreate more of a window then in the previous takes. I haven't had much experience with photoshop, so I'll run it by someone more familiar, I know.
If it turns out that this is unfixable I will just submit the film as is, with the continuity flaw, but I would like to try.
If it turns out that this is unfixable I will just submit the film as is, with the continuity flaw, but I would like to try.
clang
Veteran
Yes, it's possible to replace part of a frame with another picture, without greenscreen - it's called rotoscoping. Basically, instead of the green 'automatically' making part of the frame transparent (to show another picture underneath), you use a manually set mask to acheive the transparency. The bad news is that this can be a huge amount of work, as the mask potentially changes every single frame (unless there's no foreground action in front of the transparent area). I've done it for a shot lasting just a few seconds and it took hours of work.
Have you showed the film to a few people, to see whether they notice the continuity error? As an editor, you may understandably be needlessly obsessing over something few audience members would ever care about.
Have you showed the film to a few people, to see whether they notice the continuity error? As an editor, you may understandably be needlessly obsessing over something few audience members would ever care about.
Well I haven't edited yet, just looked all all the shots, and don't think I can find one good enough. I hear some editors can work wonders and turn some potentially bad coverage into something good. I know it would take hours. There is also one more thing I didn't think of before. Long story short, there is a table in the room that has to be turned around too. I don't have any coverage of the table shot from the other direction, which I will need.
Is it possible to rotoscope a table 360 degrees, facing the opposite direction of the room, then digitally recreate a second half of the table, using parts of the rest of the table, to be shown from a wider point of view? This decision will of course be made after editing, but it's good to know it an advance so I can plan ahead, in production now.
Is it possible to rotoscope a table 360 degrees, facing the opposite direction of the room, then digitally recreate a second half of the table, using parts of the rest of the table, to be shown from a wider point of view? This decision will of course be made after editing, but it's good to know it an advance so I can plan ahead, in production now.
clang
Veteran
Rotoscoping just helps you chop bits out of a frame (to reveal another frame underneath), it won't help with creating any new elements within the frame.
Re the table, do you have access to shoot a few clear stills of the actual table from the right direction and lighting (regardless of the background)? The table's background could be digitally removed and the remaining table pic could hopefully then be composited into place onscreen. A whole lot easier than creating fake tables in Photoshop or whatever.
Re the table, do you have access to shoot a few clear stills of the actual table from the right direction and lighting (regardless of the background)? The table's background could be digitally removed and the remaining table pic could hopefully then be composited into place onscreen. A whole lot easier than creating fake tables in Photoshop or whatever.