Scrubs Effect

skettalee

skettalee

Well-known member
My news department wants to make a promo like the scrubs intro where its changing through the cast while they are holding an xray. But just with all anchors and reporters changing as they are walking. He mentioned shooting them on a green screen and I said to mark foot steps and timing across the screen so they all move somewhat the same, then I can put that on the top of each other, line it up and then key them out and put whatever behind them that they want. (they still dont know what all they want)

I am trying to figure out if that was a good way to do it or if anyone else has done this effect before and has a few tips? Thanks in advance!
 
Guessing it's just jump cuts....being able to use a live connection to the computer and dropping a super imposed image of the last frame of the last clip over the live feed should help match up...I assume a news station has the facilities for that?

I would just shoot some tests with some of the crew, etc, and see what you can get, and then do the real thing.
 
The problem with working here is they want everything yesterday. Special effects or not, even if its not the best it can be. They are already planning the shot. They planned the shot pretty much before they even came talk to me in art to see how possible it would be. So I never get a chance to do test shots really. I wish. I want the kind of job where I got time to plan out a production. But yeah this is a fast project!
 
skettalee said:
The problem with working here is they want everything yesterday. Special effects or not, even if its not the best it can be. They are already planning the shot. They planned the shot pretty much before they even came talk to me in art to see how possible it would be. So I never get a chance to do test shots really. I wish. I want the kind of job where I got time to plan out a production. But yeah this is a fast project!
Click to expand...

Green screen might be a good bet to make things match then because I assume the shot will have some camera movement in it.
 
To me,
It looks like they used maybe a motion control rig and had each of the actors walk through the same motion of carrying the x-ray through the rooms, and putting it into the viewer, then just had a quick, maybe 4 frame dissolve between each transition to the next actor to make it a bit more smooth.

I could be wrong though? Maybe everything except the actor is composited in, a virtual set of sorts? because none of the set pieces change positions as they transition, only the actors.

..Maybe?
 
crazycatz said:
To me,
It looks like they used maybe a motion control rig and had each of the actors walk through the same motion of carrying the x-ray through the rooms, and putting it into the viewer, then just had a quick, maybe 4 frame dissolve between each transition to the next actor to make it a bit more smooth.

I could be wrong though? Maybe everything except the actor is composited in, a virtual set of sorts? because none of the set pieces change positions as they transition, only the actors.

..Maybe?
Click to expand...


I hadn't thought of that (background not changing) but I think you are right about the whole thing only with the addition of footsteps on the floor like a previous poster said so that their legs were in the right spots for the dissolve. It very well could have been a green-screen shoot where the only object was the xray viewer. I am pretty sure nothing passes in the foreground (though that could easily be layered in as well.
 
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crazycatz said:
To me,
It looks like they used maybe a motion control rig and had each of the actors walk through the same motion of carrying the x-ray through the rooms, and putting it into the viewer, then just had a quick, maybe 4 frame dissolve between each transition to the next actor to make it a bit more smooth.

I could be wrong though? Maybe everything except the actor is composited in, a virtual set of sorts? because none of the set pieces change positions as they transition, only the actors.

..Maybe?
Click to expand...

That is kind of how I figured they did it. Shoot the actors against a green screen with a mo-co set up and then have a hot shot compositor put it together.

What I would do is shoot the talent wide against a green screen, then export this as a big resolution still frame sequence then scale them up and add the pan digitally. Add a few frame dissolve in between and key in the background. Well, I would key in the background and then add the pan digitally. The big question is how much can you scale the image up before it falls apart. That is why I would convert it to a high resolution still sequence.
 
N635DC said:
I hadn't thought of that (background not changing) but I think you are right about the whole thing only with the addition of footsteps on the floor like a previous poster said so that their legs were in the right spots for the dissolve. It very well could have been a green-screen shoot where the only object was the xray viewer. I am pretty sure nothing passes in the foreground (though that could easily be layered in as well.
Click to expand...


I officially change my stance. I just watched it about 30 times. Watch the background and the objects within it. It does change from shot to shot. I can tell you how this was done. Each shot had a few people in it to give the 3d, many things going on at all times (like a real hospital) feel. They probably used a motorized camera to repeat the takes with different sets of people all the way through the intro but I would have to say that it was actually done on set. Watch it and look as the drawer positions move, patients change, objects move and so forth and so on. The only reason you don't notice people aren't exactly in place is because the dissolves happen so fast and so close to each other.

My 2 cents. It's a great intro though, I love scrubs!
 
Heh,

I also just went and watched it a bunch.
Here's a link..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbG2oCIQNdc&feature=youtube_gdata

and agree, I think they used a motion capture rig that repeated the same motion for each actors take, and dissolved between each actor with a 3or 4 frame dissolve.
I did notice the background changing too, but not the entire background changed, just a few key set pieces and props.
Also, since it is a pretty small camera move, that supports the motion control camera theory, since those can be pretty expensive, especially for large, complicated moves.

I wish you luck trying to replicate it, and would love to see the result once you've figured it out!
 
In the long version you can see at least 3 "glitches" of background. So they used a technique that was not able to do the whole thing in one shot.

That brings me to the conclusion that they just used a dolly, did a shot with one person, changed the person and some props, rolled the dolly back a tad to get some "flesh" and went from there.

Sounds doable for me. At the end you can always zoom in and move the picture up and down a bit to simulate a jib arm.

Just my ct2

Frank
 
Hey Sket,

I do a lot of FX works for films and episodic TV so here are few things you have to consider if you are going to attempt this shot.

1- You will need to roto the subjects as simply keeying them will not produce acceptable images.

2-The green screen will have markers on it for you to time out the background with the composited elements.

3-You will need to utilize camera projection+persperctive plug-in (like horizon) to be able to fit the background without it looking fake.

4- You will need to time the talent with a click track to match their speed as well as match their heights with apple boxes.

We recently did a few commercials for the Air Force that used similar FX but that was all Motion control rigs combined with GC+CG. Hope this helps,

PS: Yes, scrubs is motion control rig.
 
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