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Green Screen keying from a set build
Hi everyone!
I working on a really cool music video project but am having trouble with the green screen setups used on the set of this video.
As part of the set, the company making this video wanted old school looking TVs with green screen on them, so that we could key them out and replace them with something else in post. They wanted the freedom to change the screens, essentially, instead of having them locked down on set.
So here is a screenshot of one of the shots I’m currently editing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qFQzhvnXI_aVAawHrW7B2b-YZ_eJrBcF/view?usp=sharing
I am having trouble using the normal arsenal of green screen tools I’m used to in After Effects, such as key light. As you can see, the set was designed in a way to where we couldn’t cleanly light every single TV screen. We also had 4 band members on the set, which REALLY makes it fun for the wider shots. If I try to key the “green” color, it’s apparently a color that’s all over each frame.
I wanted to reach out to you all and get some feedback on how you would approach this unique green screen setup. So far, the only successful thing I’ve tested is using Mocha Pro to track each green screen square, and then rotoscope every. single. object – and person! – that gets in the way of every single TV screen. Needless to say, it is insanely time consuming. SO, before I spend many more days going down that path, I figured there might be a better way I’m overlooking here.
Thank you!
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8 Replies
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Those aren’t green screens; they’re more drab army olive or Avacado with just a hint of PANTONE 127-4-5 C. With multiple shadows, both hard & soft…
Yes, you should expect to have trouble.
To be honest, you’ll have the least frustration with a tracking solution rather than try to key, by learning the more fundamentals of Mocha. It may only be time consuming by the way you’ve approached it.
Martin B. frequents this forum and if you vist & post over on one of the Mocha Forums, you’ve discover the expertise of Mary P. as well. If they can’t point you to particular tutorial, they’ll often offer to take a look at your footage.
https://forum.borisfx.com/c/mochapro/
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Ah, avacado screen! Usually the result of craft services perparinig a little too much guac and an over-zealous but hungry crew… shooting on a lurching boat.
I’m with Mark on this one. Mocha!. Keep in mind that mocha “learns” the shapes you are dealing with, so depending on camera moves, the characters/objects in front of the screens will not impact you as much as you might think.
You can still key those screen shapes and colors even with the drabness of the green, but there’s a lot of green sparkles in the drummer’s dress so there will be roto required. (or are we seeing raw here and the colors are actually much more punchy when timed?)
If you start getting a fringe on the olive screens (due to the blur) once everything is keyed, you can always reduce the green screen element to gray and have that fill in the fringe. They eye isn’t very good at color and when presented with a little gray between other colors it usually assumes the gray is color too.
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Well, I dont think you can chroma key the screen with shadow behind the girl. It’s not green, it’s dark grey.
So, it’s going to be a combo of (as you already did) motion tracking / chroma key / luma key.)Now I’m afraid it’s never going to be good, so why not make it a cheesy effect with enhanced noise in the key, like it was intended to be an effect ‘back then’, with limited tools? That way you get away with it I would think…
But, do try all the keyers you can get your hands on, they all behave different.
Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com -
[Bouke Vahl] ” dont think you can chroma key the screen with shadow behind the girl. It’s not green, it’s dark grey.”
A good multi-purpose keyer would be able to handle all of this pretty easily. Unfortunately there aren’t any good multi-purpose keyers … yet.
Simon Ubsdell
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Thanks for all the replies so far, this has been really helpful!
I have learned Mocha Pro almost inside & out at this point in order to help track the screens. So that’s good! The most time consuming part for me wasn’t the tracking; since I couldn’t figure out how to get a good key, I resorted to using the magnetic lasso on every person/object in the frame, then using Mocha to track them as precisely as possible in order to build shape data, which I would then use as a mask over the screens in After Effects. So basically, rotoscoping them out. Mocha was great at tracking them but I still had to do a lot of individual tweaks because there is SO MUCH happening on certain wide shots.
I probably should’ve posted here before going down that time consuming path but hey – I learned a lot!
After trying out Primatte from Red Giant, I have found it seems to be MUCH more helpful that Keylight since it lets me grab pixel data for both my foreground and background. It’s not quite perfect but like some of you mentioned, the old school green screen vibe works for this sort of throwback project.
Simon – wow, that looks CLEAN! What was your process for getting it keyed like that?
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[Ryan Estabrooks] “Simon – wow, that looks CLEAN! What was your process for getting it keyed like that?”
Please email me (support@hawaiki.co) and I’ll explain … I can’t say any more for now.
Simon Ubsdell
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That is quite impressive Simon. Any plans for a Windows version?
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Like many compositing jobs, it looks like yours will require a mixed toolset of keying, tracking, masking, etc. Dissect the scene into pieces and sub-chunks, and ask what the right tool for each piece is, then put it all back together and slap some makeup on the stitches.
James Nielson
http://www.megafauna.org
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