Compositing into a TV screen – How to create a decent composite ?

[Steve Roberts]

You know what I would do … I’d take some DV footage (of the dog, for example), convert to VHS if necessary, and play it on TV. Then I’d shoot the room with that playing on TV. Then I’d bring the room footage into AE along with the footage of the dog. I’d then composite the dog footage over the TV, masking off half of it so I can compare the composite with the real thing.

Steve

[Vinnie]

The key to make this look good is reflections. The tube of the TV give alot of great reflections that you will need on top of you footage in order to get what you are looking for. I start off by matching the colors and contrast. Then you will need some noise or scan lines something to dirty up the footage a bit. Then mask out the tube from the shot and lay it over the footage you are trying to insert and use a combinations of transfer modes and level adjustments to lay the reflections over the top. To top it off you will need some fall off in the corners so make sure your footage fades out towards the edges of the tube.

This is all about perception. If you can look at a TV and figure out what makes it look the way it does then the hard part is over with.

good luck
Vinnie

[Pentti Kakkori]

and you have to blur your image a little.

[Michael Duff]

check to COW tutorials. One came up not too long ago that was making a TV screen. Some of the techniques would probably help you.

my 2 cents –
A subtle glow can help.
For scan lines, I just use the venetian blinds effect on a solid. Set to 50% transition, and make the width pretty small. I think this saves time rather than making a photoshop file.

[Chris Smith]

In spots we shoot, we’re always replacing cell phone screens and TV screens. A lot of the compositors use similar techniques that look great (if you look at my reel in my sig, there are 2 nokia spots that had cell phone screen replacements this way):

1. When on set, we green screen the cell phone or TV behind the plastic or glass surface. For Cell phones we put the green behind the clear plastic cover. For TV’s we pull the CRT out of the case and paint it green then will put in a fake clean plastic in front of it to pick up reflections. Then we put 4 small dots on the screen in a cube shape, but not near the corners.

2. In online, get a 4 corner track from the dots, then paint them out. Then use the green key (only really the edges since the middle is a quick garbage mask) to get good edges.

3. Track in the replacement video you want.

4. Then the trick: Take your green screen footage and use the green to isolate itself on a layer. Then turn it monochrome. Where there was green, it’s greyish, but there are all kinds of reflections from the actual room in there as well. Use this as your reflection map. You can multiply it with your replacement footage and use levels one way, or you can SCREEN it over your video and use levels in a different way. But basically using the greenscreen area that was behind something reflective to use as reflections.

So just remember a greenscreen on a TV is just to get quick edges instead of roto so use most of the screen space to capture reflections and “sheen” it is the key for a real looking comp. Many ppl don’t do this and it kills the effect.

Also the obvious: Match the basic colors and saturation to your film so that it doesn’t give clues that it is not supposed to be in the shot.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com