Time stand still

clarkage

clarkage

Well-known member
I was thinking on doing a short where there will be a scene where people are walking and all the sudden they stop as if time has frozen. Then another character walks into the scene in real time. So just to clarify it is as if he is the only one in the whole shot that is moving at full speed and everyone else is frozen. Any ideas on wether this is possible? I was thinking if there was a way where i could have him walking in between people also. Just to make it more realistic. Instead of just making it look like a total green screen shot.

If this is confusing please ask questions!

Thanks
 
You could do a few layers of greenscreened people so that your character could walk between them...or you could roto until your mouse bleeds.

Les
 
You are going to have to lock your camera down. (I am running on the assumption you do not have a motion control rig :) )

You need to shoot a background plate. The plate with the people who will be frozen. Then the action plate. Rotoscope the action plate around the frozen characters.

Or...

You can shoot the background plate, motion track the footage. (using a high end system, not AE, like MatchMover or something of the like. Then add in elements CG. Such as papers in the air and stuff that should be frozen to make it look real. In which case you could then actually dolly the camera and such. Mind you, if you can't do this yourself, you could farm it out...but it would cost a lot of money.

Best of luck. Basically option one is the cheap way with AE, option two is your pro way to do it. That's how I would tackle it.

Best,

Matt
 
check out videocopilot.net. thye got a 20 minute tutorial on how to do this.
 
Yeah, that would do it. It is the same basic concept that Kramer pointed out. Just a little bit more intricate. You should be able to work it out.

Matt
 
Yeah, come to think of if, you could shoot the background, midground and foreground
plates with a (somewhat diffuse) key light behind the camera. That way, you could do a
fairly convincing drop shadow from your moving character onto the back plates.

(I like the papers-in-the-air touch.)

Les
 
Yeah the papers in the air is a great idea!

Now i have a question about the program that you named. "Matchmaker" I did some research on it and i could only find sites that shipped to the UK and I live in the US. Do you know of any sites that ship to the US? Also, If i bought this program would i still need a motion control rig?
 
I would strongly suggest you try a test shot with the camera locked down
for all the layers. That would give you enough to worry about for now.
If that works, if you REALLY need to move the camera during the shot,
you'll need to rent a motion control rig or use some kind of match-moving
software....but try the simple locked-down experiment first.

Les
 
We have done this on a number of occasions. PM me if you would like some specific recommendations or assistance.
 
Well I would honestly recommend using the locked down tripod. MatchMover is a pretty intuitive program. It's what I use, but boujou would do it too. Both cost a lot of money out of pocket - not including training on it, time, and then the 3D work.

Visual Effects is not a cheap realm. You would be best trying the lock down.
 
OK well I am seeing what you guys mean i think.... But If i lock down my camera which i did today and played around with some stuff. How can i drop the background of a clip? Should i just green screen it? And about the papers, are you saying that i should add those in, in post? I am slowly getting confused here and I'm not sure why...
 
ok so i set up the a blue screen today and flipped my garage into a mini studio and shot some footage for about 2 hours trying to get this shot just right. I am still having some issues though... I am not sure that this is the way i want to do it. Here are some shots of my work. (very very very sketchy right now)


As You can see I am having major chroma problems!! And it is really getting frustrating!
 
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as you may know good lighting is key for a clean chroma key. use something as a backlight to separate the bluescreen and the subject better.
there are lots of tricks around the board use the search and you will find a great deal of info on bluegreenscreen.

one of the cheapest way to do it is using some of your friends and makeing them a good promise if they stand still for some hours:thumbsup:
 
haha yeah i was thinking about trying that...

I thought that i had the screen lit up pretty evenly. I made sure to have a back light, subject light, and some other lights just to even out any shadows an still my chroma came out bad. I noticed when i went to key out the background that it was keying out my brown hair also. Do you think that maybe my screen is to dark?

Also, after this first shoot today i went out and picked up some 150 watt clamp lights to help out even more.
 
Along with shadows, another thing you should be concerned with is colour on the actors. Which keying program you're using will also make a big difference. If you have something decent like the keylight plugin for after effects, it'll be much easier than using something in an NLE.
 
Yes keylight is undoubtly better than the NLE keyer.
I usually lit the greenscreen a bit brighter than the subject.
Also, which camera are you using?
 
This isn't something I've learned from personal experience, but I've read the greenscreen is supposed to be a bit darker than the subject.
 
You would not believe how often this shot is done with all the extras remaining perfectly still. The ones in a falling position are supported with cables and CGI elements are added into the enviroment like trash, rain, birds etc. Thats how they did it on Heros and many other shows and movies without greenscreening.
 
HBlack said:
This isn't something I've learned from personal experience, but I've read the greenscreen is supposed to be a bit darker than the subject.
Click to expand...

yes, that's what i've heard, but I have seen that that only applies to subjects that are bright, but if the subjects are dark I usually lit the chroma brighter to make contrast between the chroma and the subject.

bright subject=dark(at least one stop less)
dark subject=brighter chroma

This has worked for me but every chroma setup is different so...
 
The program that I am using is built in to my editing software which i am sure none of your have heard of, it is called Powerdirector 6. And it doesn't do that great of a job when I am chroma keying but it is alright if the lighting is good. I was trying to find a program that i could get for free that would be better than what i have right now. Do you guys know of any free chroma key software?

On the subject of the green screen being darker, I would suggest making the lighting on the subject close to what you are going to put behind him. This way it is an even light flow in the final shot.
 
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