I found someone who wants to help me film a video for my song. In it, I'm going to be playing every instrument, so we're going to be using a green screen. Now, the actual filming sounds like the easiest part. However, the challenge is going to be putting 4 or 5 (maybe even 6) of me in the same shots. As a matter of fact, I'm looking to pull it off like how Andre 3000 did it in the "Hey ya" music video - minus the whole crowd and 50's deal (and the wacky dancing, hehe). Does anyone have any tips on how to go about this? I have CS4 Master Collection and Maya. I feel the hardest parts will be getting angles right. But how the hell does one pull it off when I want the camera to pan around the me's - still keeping my "dopplegangers" in perspective? IF this can be pulled off, it will be fucking awesome! Please help or send me in the right direction! Credit will be given in the video credits if someone can help me out, somehow. As a reference: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvKs133Udmk"]YouTube- OutKast - Hey Ya (High-Quality)[/ame]
As a first "green-screen" project, I'd suggest doing it simple. As in keeping it 2D, or at least static 3D. For moving camera, you also need reference points on the green-screen and preferably also a camera-dolly that can output position data (yaw, tilt, x, y and height) that can be fed to your 3D package. When doing it simple, all you need is a background and a few flat objects that contain the video-feeds, where the green from the footage is used as a cut-out mask, or alpha-mask as we like to call it. Your biggest worry doing it like this, is getting the timings right. So prepare the footage beforehand in an editing-suite. For each scene, make as many tracks as you got footage of yourself with green screen for that scene. Put each footage on their own track, find some reference point all should cue to, and make sure all the shots line up to that. Then export one track at a time, and import them to the 3D package. Then use the footage as a surface on the flat objects you made earlier. Simple as pie, but timeconsuming as hell
Wow. Thank you! This is exactly the info I was hoping to hear. I will definitely mull over this one. This is definitely going to be fun. +Rep for the great info!
Glad to help Oh, and one little thing, when doing the green-screen footage, you need to be very carefull with the lighting of the screen. It need to be very even with no hotspots from the lamp-fixtures. The simplest (and cheapest) solution is just to hang flourescent tubes at the top, a foot or two from where the screen meet the ceiling or whatever you hang it on. Also get some diffusion-gels (Lee 216) to spread the light some more. As for the action-part (that is you), you will need at least four fixtures and a dimmer to control them. One fresnel overhead and from behind, one profile on both sides and a profile for front. The last three at face height or over preferably. Good luck. If you got some questions just ask, just as long as it is not minutia of how to work the software (I'm an Avid and Lightwave guy myself)
Thanks. Yeah, I heard about the lighting situation. I hear it's a real bitch to implement correctly... Cool cool, thanks again for the tips. And don't worry - no minutia. I have all of the tutorials I need (I think). I just didn't see anything about compositing how I want to (like what I talked about in the OP). Hopefully it will all work out, and hopefully this dude will call me (the one who responded to my Craigslist ad regarding the video).... Word.