I wish to put a person into a clip

[Jeremy Garchow]

Can you post a screen grab of the explosion?

My first reaction would to roto (cut out) most of the explosion, then add the person on top and composite the explosion back in. It would be hard to do convincingly.

Another thought would to add an additional explosion (with a prerecorded effect, or make your own with particles) on top of the original and composite the person behind the additional explosion.

[John Rofrano]

I agree with Jeremy’s last suggestion. You probably need to create a computer generated explosion so that you can place it in front of the person. Just more smoke to add to the original explosion would probably do. Shoot the person on a green screen so that you an easily key out the background and composite the shot with the original footage -> chroma keyed person -> CG explosion from bottom to top.

Selling the shot is a different story. When you shoot the person, you need to make sure that all light and shadows are coming from the same direction as in the original scene. Also the color temperature of the lighting must match (I assume daylight). Some chroma keys have a light wrap mode that will wrap a bit of the original light around the edges of the composited foreground to make it blend better with the background but there is no substitute for getting the lighting and shadows to match when you shoot the two scenes in the first place.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Joe Heslin]

Hey thanks for the replies.
I got real close last night messing with masking, but my result was the exact opposite of what I wanted, and couldn’t do it in reverse. I probably could if I increased my knowledge in this program faster than I already am.

I was just messing around with a perfect video explosion off of youtube, trying to get an idea of how I might do things for the real shoot.
For starters, I know I will have to have the camera on a steady tripod. I also know I’ll need a shoot of me standing at ground zero, as well as setting the explosion off with the camera in the same place moments after I shoot myself standing at GZ.

I’m just going to try and get a bunch of pieces of the puzzle made, and I’ll bang my head later trying to put it all together.

I was also looking at youtubes of motion 5. Might that be an answer?
M5 looks like it has an even steeper learning curve than FCPX.
Arrrgh!
I love learning this stuff, but man, it hard on a guys head.
Here’s a short video I made last night after I got tired of playing with the explosion, that’s a friend of mine’s head. Ha ha!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIhlLV9e9G4

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[John Rofrano]

Motion can help you achieve this because it has particle emitters. What you need to do is place the person on top of the background and the explosion on top of the person so you need 3 layers. You cannot do this with the explosion and the background on the same layer as you have here.

You may be able to fake it by adding more smoke from Motion on top of the person to augment the smoke that is already in the scene but it may be very hard to match the same type of smoke. The easiest solution is use a clean background, then add CG explosion which reveals the person on a layer below the explosion as the dust settles.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Joe Heslin]

Ok. I’m pretty close here.
This involved a bunch of layers and stuff in photoshop, and the still could use a little more contrast help, but you get the idea.
I also used a fraction of a second of a silhouette luma blend right after the first frame of the explosion. Sorry for the extensive fade in at the start.

Thoughts, opinions?

Thanks.

Joe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=w9rVrpa0ARI

[Jeremy Garchow]

I must have misunderstood you. I thought you wanted him to remain after the explosion.

Here’s something I knocked together in 15 minutes, so it’s far from prefect, and I don’t have the full version of particular on this machine, so there’s a big red ‘X’ from the demo version, but you can see the intention.

Looks like Joey’s going to make it after all. Yay Joey!

12486_sorryjoey.mov.zip

[Jeremy Garchow]

Hi, Joe. I will repsons to you here as I don’t know if you will receive responses on the video comments section.

[Joe Heslin] “”Good job with the extra smoke trails. How did you do that, if I may ask?”

I used Trapcode Particular in After Effects.

I also Luma matted the existing expulsion/smoke on separate layers, and composited that in as well.

I could have used Particular to make more smoke, but I wanted to get this out quickly. ☺

As mentioned, it’s not perfect and needs more work but shows a proof of concept.

Jeremy