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cutting doc style piece on greenscreen
I’m trying to approach this project correctly, and I wanted some quick help.
We have multiple interviews, shot on greenscreen. They are 2 camera, one wide and one tight. They match TC and both have the primary audio.
In cutting, should I cut the entire thing, then key afterwards? The framing will change moving between the 2 camera’s…so I’ll have to change the background scale.
I only have experience doing greenscreen compositing in AE, I’ve looked at Primatte plugin inside FCP, I’d like to keep the key native inside FCP, so I don’t have to translate the edited timeline over to AE.
Or should I move it over to AE for keying using something like Automatic Duck?
Thoughts?
-Jason
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4 Replies
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Hi, Jason.
My strong advice would be to do all the keying once you’ve compiled the rough edit. It’ll take you a really, really long time to render and re-render if you keep making changes. What you might try is creating the two bgs (one for wide, one for close), applying them to the appropriate clips, but then unticking the key filter in FCP, so that you’re just previewing the unkeyed footage. Then if you want to see what a cut between a wide and a tight would look like, just turn on the key filter for the two clips you want to check, and render scrub between the two. This is what we usually do, prior to agreeing the edit. Then we just leave it all churning overnight.
Also, if you download the Primatte keyer trial for FCP, you get a free cutdown version, which we often use on its own. Worth a shot.
Simon.
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If the key is clean in FCP with the plugin, I’d just do it there. Also would do it after the edit is locked… why work on keys of material that gets cut out?
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
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Jason,
Having cut a green screen doc myself and going through the same questions, I concur with everyone else: key it later. Focus on the story; edit now and only key it after you are locked or at least have the story down. You will spend far less time cutting and pasting filters and backgrounds down the road than wasting time perfecting the key on a bunch of footage that will never see the light day.
For me, I like to use the BCC plug-ins over FCP’s but that will cost you some money. Less than others though and it will save you from going to AE, etc. If you’ve got nice, evenly lit footage though you should fair well with FCP. Some experimenting will reveal the truth quickly.
Either way, my suggestion is to cut now, key later. Good luck!
Hans Damkoehler
VideoBloom, Inc.
Senior Video Editor/Producer -
great…this helps alot! I figured it was the case to do less work until it’s siphoned down. My biggest question was really how to deal with the focal length changes between cuts. But if I’m cutting in FCP, I could just drop that layer behind and copy-paste the scale on those clips that are underneath the tighter shots…anyways…thanks for the input!
-Jason
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