How to film for & do the invisible effect?

[John Cuevas]

From experience I can tell you that the difference mat works well in theory, but in practice not so much. Slight differences that you probably won’t see can make it extremely difficult to remove someone from a shot. Give it a shot,but test it first. And if it doesn’t work, here are a couple Cow tutorials on creating invisible man looks: The Invisible Cape

Creating an Invisible Man

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[Darby Edelen]

[Melissa Evans] “What I’m thinking of is shooting the whole scene as it is, and then shooting the exact same thing but without the invisible person, is that correct? Then in AE, use a difference matte to make the person invisible?”

If your camera is locked down on a tripod then you probably won’t even need the difference matte. You can simply transition from one set of footage to another in a localized area with a mask or matte.

You may need to color correct the shot some to match. You’ll definitely need to think through what else is visible in the shot that may move between takes (trees blowing in the wind? cars driving by?).

You may even be able to get away with a still image from the beginning of a take (before the talent has come on screen). This would require matching the grain/noise on the video.

Darby Edelen

[Melissa Evans]

Yea I think I’ll definitely try out a test shot first.. will try to minimize the other moving elements in the shot to make life easier. Thanks for the tutorials and advice!