Zoter 0 #1 July 10, 2006 I wrote this little story in response to a story in Photography/Video forum about Chromakeying (link to forum post below) http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2323212;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread Its a little long , but if you have a few mins ...sit back with a cup o Coffee and enjoy.... ****************************************** OK...so it was Autumn 2004 (if I remember correctly) I was seeing a gal who lived a few hours away from where I lived ( in London)....so most weekends were spent up at her house , which she shared with a cute lil dog called 'Gin'. We were lucky to have one of the UK's best DZ's quite close.....so most of our weekend days were spent there. Well this particular day , the weather was crap, so we were at her home....looking out the window, at the persistant rain...hmm what to do,what to do...... well I enjoy video editing and had my camera with me and had been thinking for a while about trying to do some effects with 'Chromakeying'. For you non editors , thats where you use a computer and green (or blue) screen to replace certain parts of a movie frame with scenes from a different movie.......example.....you want to show a movie of a ..erm...horse ...skydiving, so you shoot some footage of the horse , with a green screen behind it,.....and get some footage of the sky during skydiving. Now you use your video editing program to 'key out' the 'green' areas on the horse footage and to replace those green areas with the sky footage.....so in the end it 'looks' like your horse is falling through the sky...?? .. Simple right..? No no no...far from it......you see your subject 'cant' have any similar colours to the green screen or they can be 'key'd out' as well.....which doesnt look good. I had some great ideas for this effect and as a budding editor , wanted to 'realise' my editing dreams ! In particular , I wanted to use this chromakey effect to shoot a scene of 'Gin' skydiving.....I had the sky footage...I just need some footage of 'Gin' against a background I could use the Chromakey effect on.. We raided the house for green sheets.....err nope So it was off to the local cheapo market for some sheets. OK now it gets interesting....:) So my vision was to shoot film of Gin in a skydiving pose.....but as you know, asking Dogs to sit is one thing, asking them to assume the Mantis position ....is quite another !....so I figured if Kate ( my partner at the time) dressed up in 'Blue' against our sheet clad 'Blue Chromakey' background.....she could hold Gin in the right position and just be part of the background which I could chromakey out... So we emptied this shop of bright blue sheets and pillowcases to use in our masterpiece. We got home and used the blue sheets to good effect...setting up our 'set' and background........I was already getting a little worried when I realised the lighting we had was far from sufficient and there were shadows everywhere all over the sheets !! but crack on I thought....get the footage.... Next its was Kates turn.......in a nutshell she was covered with a blue sheet with two small eye hole cut out..(think very bad Halloween Ghost costume here) and for her arms and hands I tied blue pillow cases around them .......needless to say, this looked hilarious...but Kate to her credit was as committed to doing it as much as I was ......even though I kept breaking out periodically in a fit of giggles and controlled laughter behind the camera. Gin ....who has always been a very sensitive creature that really doesn't like surprises....was by this time just a tad concerned...nay petrified....by this scene....picture it.....he is in his front room that has this strange blue sheet draped over one side of it.....and is being coaxed to step onto the sheet by a voice he recognises dressed head to toe in a blue sheet.... I swear I could 'hear' the confusion in that dogs brain ....and definately could smell the fear ! Anyway......we eventually managed to coax him into cooperation....with some biscuits and Kate proceeded to lift him up into the 'required' skydiving positions for the shoot.... The next 30 mins was a scene you rarely could contemplate in small Lincolnshire town....and in fact should anyone have walked through the door at any time , I'm positive there would have been a silent pause by all parties for at least a minute, whilst they contemplated what the hell is going on and we were contemplating what they were thinking !......In fact I'm sure the only movemnet would have been Gin....keen to escape the blue 'sheet of death' After a particularly long laughing fit ... assisted with tears at the site of Kate in her blue sheets lifting Gin up....we decided to abandon the shoot and just take away what we already had ( Gin was super happy at this though by the way) Well I got home later that wekend ....and loaded up the footage ...keen to see what I could do....As it turns out the total lack of forethought for lighting ( and the black shadowing it caused) , combined with a very poor consistency of blue in the 'blue screen', meant that my attempts to chromakey the footage was a complete and utter failure..... But I've never cried so much with laughter whilst trying to edit something..... When I root out the footage I'll post a couple o screenshots for you all to enjoy ! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VampireGirl 0 #2 July 11, 2006 Yep, looking forward to seeing the screen shots! That's a cute memory too. XX Sarahwww.sneale-create.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
