Overview
For this project we were set the task of using green screen to
composite real life footage. As the project was supposed to have a personal
theme I decided to recreate the journey I take home every weekend to see my
baby daughter.
As I go home on the train I thought this would be an interesting
project to try and put together, and after discussing it with ken we also came
up with the idea of me falling asleep on the train and having a dream.
As I have gone into quite a lot of detail of how I put my
project together on my journal, I will briefly discuss the different stages I went
through to complete my project.
After finalizing my idea the first thing I did was to go out
and obtain all the elements I needed to put my project together. First I started
off by filming a back plate for when I get off the train. This involved taking
a Canon XF100 and a tripod back home to Leicester with me, to film the train I normally
catch to my home town pulling into the station. The day was pretty over cast so
there were not a lot of shadows, but luckily there were other people on the
platform to get on the train, which I think added a bit more realism to the
shot.
Next I wanted to do the back plate for looking out of the
window, in the shots where I am sat on the train. So the following weekend I took
my camera back with me, and sat it on some books so it had a decent steady shot
out of the train window. Unfortunately I think due to the speed of the train
the footage was unusable so I set about different ways of obtaining this shot. What
I did was to look on the internet and after viewing lots of videos decided on
one I found on YouTube, which I believe is set in America, but was the closest
to looking like the UK.
Next I went out and got my photograph for the shot inside
the train carriage. I took about thirty pictures all together with a Nikon D50,
so I had plenty to go on with.
I then went into Adobe After Effects to start putting
together the inside of the train shot. I did this by first taking the interior photograph
and carefully masking out the window, and placing the window footage below it. I
then duplicated the photograph and shrank it to add some depth to the window
frame.
Just after Easter, ken and I then went into the green screen
studio to film the shots of me on the train and walking down the platform. We set
up two Kino Flo lights and a deflector to film both the shorts as I have
explained in my journal, so that the lighting and shadows were as accurate as
can be. We did several takes so that I had plenty to choose from.
Now I had all of my shots done I had to put the whole
project together. To do this I used Adobe After Effects. I keyed out my green
screen footage using Keylight 2.1 and placed it over the relevant back plates. After
keying out I still had a lot of masking to do, which took the most time of all.
I then added shadows using a mixture of masks and duplicated
layers, the whole time applying colour correction techniques to help match up
my footage. I then added extra elements like a vignette to add extra shadows to
the footage and also to draw the viewer to the center of the composition.
After I was happy with everything I then did my final colour
correcting. I used an adjustment layer and placed it over the top of everything.
I added a curves adjustment, tint and a glow to help make the colours more
realistic, and you can see the results of this in my journal.
I then added shots of my daughter for the dream sequence
that I had pre-composed earlier and placed them in to the shot, using a white
solid to fade from reality into the dream sequence. After I was happy I pre-composed
everything and moved it into a new composition where I then added a twirl
effect which is used as the transition into the dream.
Then I rendered out the whole project as an uncompressed AVI
so not to lose any quality, and took it into Adobe Premiere Pro for editing and
adding the sound effects. I found all of my sound effects on YouTube and used Adobe
Sound Booth to convert them to WAV files. All that was left to do now was to
put the sounds in place and do some test renders and correct any errors. I then
rendered out my finished project using the ‘match sequence settings’ option in Premiere
Pro to get the best quality possible.
Problems / Help
The most help I had throughout this project was from ken
when we went into the green screen studio to film my project. This is because
he has such a great knowledge of lighting and how to get around problems. Thanks
to his help I think my footage is many times over better than what I could have
achieved by myself, and what I have learned from these experiences have been invaluable.
Other help I got was online in the form of tutorials. This was
the case when I came to keying out my green screen footage. As I had never gone
through this process before my initial attempts looked poor at best, with bits
of my body completely missing. Luckily I found a great tutorial on
videocopilot.net,
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/basic_color_keying/
which helped me obtain a much better result for my keying, as I have explained
in much detail in my journal. I also found a really good tutorial on the same
website
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/mid_air_emergency/
that helped me with my colour correction. It helped me in a sense that it showed
me the different colour correction effects I needed to use like curves
adjustments, tint and glow effects and how best to utilize these effects within
my project.
Over the course of the project I also encountered many
problems, some of them due to errors of my own making. An example of this was
when we were in the green screen studio and we had just filmed both the shots I
needed. Ken then noticed that the camera was set to interlaced, and as I could
not remember if my back plates were interlaced or progressive we had to re film
both shots, just to make sure. This made the session twice as long, purely down
to my error.
As I mentioned I also had difficulty recording the shot out
of the train window, was there was too much glare and reflection coming off the
window when I filmed it on the train, and it was a dull day. After this I decided
to source a clip off of the internet.
Another big problem I had was with the chair I had used to
sit on in the green screen studio. We placed a green hoody over the back of the
chair in hope that it would key out properly when it came to removing the
green. Unfortunately the green was to dull and when I tried to key it out most
of my body and face disappeared to, and no matter what I tried I could not get
it to look good. So I then had to go through the clips every two to five frames,
depending on my amount of movement and mask out the back of the chair. This was
a very time consuming and tedious process.
Changes I Would Make
If I could go back and change anything or have had more time,
I would have changed a number of things.
First off when filming my back plate I would have noted down
if it was interlaced or progressive, and at what angle the platform was adjacent
to the camera, so that we wouldn’t have had to film so many takes in the green
screen studio, and my footage would have also had a better perspective scale to
it for the platform shot.
While in the studio I would have set the camera up so that
the back of my chair was just out of shot, either this or use a backless chair.
This would have saved me a lot of time but it is also another lesson I have
learned from this project.
Since completing the project I have also noticed a number of
problems with the finished work. One of these is the shadow that appears on the
window when I am sorting out my hair after waking. It looks a little odd and I believe
there may be a partial mask over it I have left on by mistake. Also the train
window is very blown out and could do with having a bit more contrast. I would
also like to add some more reflections to my face, as when the footage brightness
changes the lighting on me doesn’t. I will be changing all of these problems
and adding the reflections for my show reel.
Conclusion
Over all considering at the start of this project I had not really
experimented with green screen keying and compositing, I feel my project has
had a positive outcome, and that the quality of my work is of an expected
standard. I have learned a lot of invaluable experience from doing this module,
from learning how to key, how to set up cameras and lighting and also what not
to do during these processes, which sets me up well for the future.
