Chroma keying

[David Bogie]

[Editguy69] ” have to do my first chroma keying gig in FCP 6 and was wondering what other people are using. “

FCP, Motion, After Effects. Some of us use Shake, combustion, or a live swithcer.

[Editguy69] “Does FCP have built in plugins that do a good job or do I need to use other plugins or AE? “

Yes. No, but you might. The two crucial and literally hardwired chromakey fandamentals are proper lighting on the set and sufficient chroma resolution. It is impossible to pull a decent key without BOTH. There is nothing in any software that can save you if you fail on either of those.

[Editguy69] “Can you do this in motion? “

Yes.

[Editguy69] “Footage is from betacam SP captured uncompressed 10 bit.
Thanks “

Then your issue will be how you digitize the footage into the computer in order to preserve the maximum chroma resolution. Look for posts on AJA and KONA cards.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Fcpinnfla]

Motion 3 has awesome chromakey tools. Fairly simple to figure out. Download the manual…

[Winston A. cely]

I would love to second bogiesan’s point about, the most important factor is the shooting of the footage itself. There are far too many shooters out there who have NO IDEA how to shoot greenscreen! But having said that, once I started using this…

https://www.dvgarage.com/prod/prod.php?prod=conduit15

… a lot of my problems went away. For the money, and effort it takes to learn nodes, this is hands down the best chroma keyer out there.

PS Hey shooters, keep the subjects far enough away from the screen, and light the d*mn thing evenly!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

“If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy Man.” – Peter O’Toole – “The Stuntman”

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Lee Mceachern]

I have not tried to do any chroma keying in FCP but I’m building a new MacPro-based system and considering whether to build in a new approach to keying. I currently do all my chroma keying in After Effects using KeyLight and I think it is an absolutely wonderful tool; I’d recommend it to anyone.

That being said, if I can get equal — truly equal — results by staying inside FCP and using, perhaps, the Conduit product I’d happily do that. Does anyone here have experience in both? I’d really be interested to know if Conduit — or something else I could use inside FCP — does as clean a key as I can get with AE and KeyLight?

Anyone?

[Winston A. cely]

I’ve not used AE of KeyLight, and unless you’re dealing with pristine source footage, I don’t care a fig for Motion 2 (haven’t used Motion 3) as far as keying goes. Is Motion 3’s keying improved greatly over 2?

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

“If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy Man.” – Peter O’Toole – “The Stuntman”

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Arnie Schlissel]

For keying inside of FCP, I’ll go along with Winston and recommend Conduit. But I really prefer using Keylight inside of Shake. The flexibility you get inside of Shake makes a huge difference. And Keylight and Primatte are both included with Shake. There are times when you will need to use both on a single key.

Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog