Re-creating Geico TV Ad using only two colors

[Mark Barton]

Seems like I would start with Sony Black and White and add Brightness and Contrast to get it monochrome. From there a secondary color corrector should convert the blacks to the color you desire.

[Steve Rhoden]

Thats the right way to start getting to that effect Mark….

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Film Editor & Compositor.
Filmex Creative Media.
1-876-832-4956

[Graham Bernard]

Mark, Steve, that was my conclusion too. I tried this yesterday, and no dice. I couldn’t sub a Black for a colour. I did try.

I have a fundamental flaw in my understanding in how Vegas deals with monotone Colours, in a project like this.

Hmm…. interesting.

Grazie

[Andrew Lenczycki]

That commercial obviously had some serious FX work done on it. Everything is either white or blue (i.e. no “shades of gray”). I was able to loosly approximate by putting a video clip on track 1 and the major color I wanted the video to become in track 2, which is simply a Media Generators – Solid Color (I chose blue to approximate the ad).

I then applied the following Sony FX to the video event in track 1:
Black & White – I set the value to 1.0 (for full black & white)
Brightness & Contrast – Brightness: .18
Contrast: .68
Contrast Center: .69
Chroma Keyer: I selected black from the video event (which will make black be “invisible”), letting the color in Track 2 to “show thru”. This is not as clean as the Geico ad, but I was able to do in about 5 minutes. Depending on your video event, you may need to tweak from my quick settings.

Below are two screen shots of the original and the “Geicoized” video.

Andrew Lenczycki

[Mark Barton]

I thought I was just not using the secondary color plugin correctly, but when I tried again I get a solid mask, not the result I was looking for. I switched that out for the Sony Mask Generator plugin and like Andrew mentioned, added a media generated color on the track below.

[John Perez]

Fantastic input!! Hi Grazie, my old video mentor from the UK. I will start with these and let everyone know the results. I had put this quiery on the DMN forums with no replies! Is that a dying forum? The moderators have always been helpful and supportive but I’ve posted three things lately on there with no feedback. Creative Cow is now my new Vegas forum home.

As always thanks so much to you guys…Johnny In Orlando