-
Remove mic pack from walking actor
Just wanted to get some thoughts, I’m fairly new to AE and I’m trying to get rid of a mic pack from an actor. Shot is on a glidecam but doesn’t travel, so a bit of shake. Actor walks away from camera. Tried a basic clone to cover the mic pack, which worked fine, and tracked it in mocha to send the brush strokes along with the actor. Problem is final result looks very obvious that there’s a big splotch following the actor around due to her movement as she walks. Best solution I’ve found so far is to drop the paint strokes to 80% opacity so you still see some of the shirt/pants movement, but you do still see a large splotch following her AND you can see some of the mic pack, so it’s not ideal.
Any thoughts? Doesn’t need to be hollywood studio quality mic pack removal, but I’m sure there’s something better than what I’m doing.
-
4 Replies
-
Can you post a few screen grabs, so we know what we’re working with?
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. -
Sure dude
Here’s the start of the clip
https://40.media.tumblr.com/c2c31f8a14559eb9269f466d32e0e61a/tumblr_njf1o0iYGH1tbwib1o2_540.png
Here’s the end of it
https://40.media.tumblr.com/26a795619ed02df071367f8b6c490a78/tumblr_njf1o0iYGH1tbwib1o1_540.png
I’m still new to AE so sorry if this is a bad question or too involved to give some advice on, but I appreciate you taking the time to look it over.
Actor walks straight from A to B, but a simple track with any kind of static cover-up isn’t going to do it, since there’s too much movement in her hips and shirt. What I tried doing was creating a layer on top of the brush strokes that keyed out the mic pack with a little fuzziness around it, which worked okay but not great. Any other thoughts?
Thanks again.
-
No need to be sorry. Best method would be to re-shoot, that would be the simplest answer. That could be cloned/painted out, but unless you’re a genius at that, it’s not going to look great…which I think you have already discovered. Shadows, movement, wrinkles all become big problems.
Just a thought, but since you can’t see her talking, could you take the end of the shot & zoom in past the microphone and just edit the dialogue from there?
Wish I had a better solution, but IMO reshoot will be less costly than spending week(s) trying to fix that mic pack.
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. -
Right on, thanks for the suggestions. Nah, it’s such a short bit the producers are content to let it ride if necessary rather than reshoot, they just asked if there was anything I could do about it and I thought it might be a good learning experience to see what I could come up with.
Thanks again.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up