Green Screen

[Chelsea Womack]

I think I just solved my own problem. 2 layers and a garbage matte.

[Kevin Monahan]

Nice job!

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Chelsea,

The first thing to do is shout at the camera operator who didn’t see this coming…

Do you have After Effects at all? You’ll find the keying tools there much more effective. My advice for either application though, would be to use a number of duplicated layers, each masked/cropped so that you’re only targeting a specific portion of the image.
For example, Layer 1 would be the interviewer, so crop the image so you just see them, and Layer 2 would be the subject, so just crop around the subject. Then you can control the keying a bit more effectively. This is MUCH easier to do in After Effects, and you get better results.
Someone may be able to advise on a method with Motion, but I’m not familiar with it myself.

All the best,
Alex

[Alex Elkins]

Never mind, you solved it before I finished posting my response. Nice one.

[John Ward]

Hello, there –

there are many more elegant ways to take care of this problem but I’m assuming you want / have to stay in Final Cut. We recently had the same problem with someone wearing a green tie to a green-screen shoot. If your subject isn’t moving too much, duplicate the clip above your current one, remove the key on the duplicate and use a garbage matte to keep the ‘interior’ of your subject in. You’ll probably want to download an 8-point matte or something more flexible than the 4-point FCP has and you’ll want to soften the edges a bunch. If your subject is moving around a lot this can be extremely time-consuming as you’ll need to continuously move the points of the matte. If you have access to AfterEffects you can use some other tools to make this go faster. Hate to say it but there’s no easy way out of this type of thing.

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions

john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[Chelsea Womack]

Thanks for the advice everyone. While the 8 point garbage matte seems to be the solution, I am getting a “shadow” effect on one of the layers. Basically where the 2 edges of the layers meet there’s a gray shadow. I’m still having issues uploading a photo. Grr.

greenscreen2.jpg [x]

[Alex Elkins]

[Chelsea Womack] “Basically where the 2 edges of the layers meet there’s a gray shadow.”

It sounds like one of your layers may have some of the subject keyed out, so you’re seeing FCPs black backround showing through slightly. Have you feathered the edge of one of the mattes? Try un-feathering a little and see if the problem is reduced.

All the best,
Alex Elkins

[Chelsea Womack]

Ok, once again nevermind. I had a garbage matte on both layers instead of just the bottom layer. Sorry for posting before thinking!

[Neal Fox]

OK. The seq settings was the problem. I no longer get the red bar AND the matte points go where expected.

Thanks everyone. Just one more question:

I’m on an old G5 and the hi def is taxing the computer. I really didn’t need HD but now I can’t re-shoot. So is there an easy way to make the hi def footage into SD? I can still do it in HD but it would slow the process way down.

Thanks.

[Chelsea Womack]

Neal,

Ooops. I think you replied to the wrong thread.