[Joshw27]

Thanks worked like a charm!

[Joshw27]

Thanks for the tips.

The room really isn’t that big, so the most I can really have the actors or anything away from the green wall is 5-6 feet. They have a make shift light box hanging from the ceiling above the actors (5-6 feet from the wall). I may try and rig some amber gels to it. Do you think that would help, casting amber light directly down on the actors from above?

Now that I look back on it, I should of just shot the whole thing on green then photoshoped and compositied the rest. No props at all, just the actors. Considering they are really just background and never really come in to play, they are just there casting bad shadows and darkers shades of green :O) You live and you learn!

This is one of my first attempt shooting the shots myself. I’m pretty versed on the editing and computer side. This is making for a lot of late hours. I ended up downloading the demo version of After Effects and am using a combo of keylight, and adding and subtracting masks, & precomposing to get the best key for each scence. Lucky most of the actors aren’t moving, so I can mask out a lot of the bad shadows and green. Only in some parts do I use need to use animated masks. I could do this in Sony, and I attemped, but the color shift in clothes was really messing me up.

Well thanks for the help, like I said this is definately a learning progress, but this is forcing me to get more creative which is a good thing! With Ultra I probably could of just pulled a key and what fun is that? :O)

Josh

[Joshw27]

Zipedit,

Thanks for all the great tips. I’ll definately impletement them the next time I shoot. I really like the idea of adjusting the iris to get zibra striped to check an even green screen. I’m shooting w/ their Panasonic DVX100. Nice camera. I posted some screen grabs just to show you how I REALLY don’t like the spill supressor used by Vegas Chroma Key.

http://www.shiftstudentministries.com/images/before_key.jpg

http://www.shiftstudentministries.com/images/key_not_adjusted.jpg

http://www.shiftstudentministries.com/images/after_key.jpg

These were quick grab, not fine tuning, just used to show my issue.

Thanks for your help!

Josh

[Joshw27]

I’ll post some screen shots later tonight when I get home.

On the shirt and pants, it’s a total color shift not just the edge.
I wish I had the resources for that extensive lighting. I just have 2 light stands w/ 2 500W halogen bulbs on each stand washing across the green screen.

Regarding other issues, this is video that was captured in Vegas, no other effects on the layer, or event but Chroma Blur and Chroma Key. Even if I remove Chroma Blur I still see the same effect.

Next time I will definately take more time w/ the lighting, but unfortunately w/ this shoot I was forced to do a quick make-shift set, and the key turned out bad because of some shadows created by set props. In the past I’ve done mostly individuals w/ medium and medium close shots against green, so it’s pretty easy to pull. This is more complicated, and I’m forced to do a bunch of masks to get rid of shadows, which I am fine, but this whole color shift is driving me crazy.

[Joshw27]

Too me it looks like Vegas Chroma Key automatically applies a spill surpressor to the key. From using spill surpressor in programs like After Effects, I’ve noticed it can do some funky things w/ the color and tint of colors. Looks like it is using magenta tones to balance out the green from the key.

The problem w/ this is you have no control over it and cannot disable it that I can see, so in my scene where I have a man walk on screen w/ blue jeans and a denim shirt, it makes his blue jeans and shirt magenta.

[Joshw27]

jon,

You hit the nail on the head. Apple Keynote Reflections transitions. I watched the Apple demo for Keynote and it shows the exact transition. I own both Mac and Windows, so I think I’ll export out of Keynote as Quicktime movie.

Thank you all for you suggestions.

Josh

[Joshw27]

Marisu,

That was it kindof or got me pointed in the right direction, I had to overlap the two segments slightly. Overlaping is what allowed the transition to be placed “center at cut”. It’s flakey to me, because everywhere else I can place transitions “center at cut” without overlaping the two clips. I can’t see a clear defined rule/logic.

1. I don’t have to do this when going from photo to photo.
2. I don’t have to do this if the transition A is a photo and B is video.
3. I only have to do this when transition A is video and B is photo.

But enough said, I’ve got it working! :O)

Thank you all for your help.

Josh

[Joshw27]

Thanks for the reply and Good point, but not the case here. :O(

There is definately footage before and after the clip. But to make sure I’m not misunderstanding, I did this:

Opened the source video
Set IN and OUT points, (plenty of footage before and after)
and inserted the video between two stills on the timeline.

Just can’t transition from the end of the video clip into the next still. This happens in every video clip I place on the timeline. I can transition from still into video, but not from video into still.

It only allows me to place the transitions at the end of the video clip, so it would transition to black, or the beginning of still, transition from black. Not A to B.

[Joshw27]

Thanks for the reply.

I just don’t understand why it would allow me to create a transiton that overlaped the two clips when going from Still to Video, but not when going from Video to Still.

I will try again once I get home checking the CTI, but I was simply trying a drag and drop from the transitions panel, and it would visually indicate placing the transition at the end of the video clip, or the begining of the still, but not “between” and overlapping the two clips.

I hope that makes sense.

[Joshw27]

Depending on the size of the video files, if you can keep them under 4GB a piece, you can format the drive to FAT32. This would work cross-platform between Mac OS and Windows. XP and 2000 can’t create large (over 32GB) FAT32 partiton, so you’ll have to use OSX Disk Utility to format the drive to FAT32.

Also if you are running OSX 10.3 or above, NTFS (Windows File system) can be mounted Read-only.

MacDrive is good software also, the demo runs for 30 days or something. So you’ll have time to really try before you buy.

Josh