same actress playing two characters

Chris Cooke · April 25, 2005

I'm shooting scene where these twin girls (who are played by the same actress) finally meet each other. The producer wants it to be shot on a green screen. The only problem I have with this is that I absolutely hate when the viewer can tell that it's obviously a chroma key shot. My camera is a DVX-100 and the scene will be edited on a FCP HD edit suite.

Does anyone have any advice for an alternative or a better way to shoot and/or key my green screen.

drew_town · April 25, 2005

Use the double exposure method. I think that's the correct term. The shots are stationary and you shoot half the image, then the other half, both with the actress in each shot. And you stitch them together in post. It's cake if it's not a moving shot. That's how they shot Febe and her twin on the Friend's tv series. Most of the time with prosumer keying software like After Effects, Final Cut, and some others, you'll want to stay away from the dv format. Unless you like rotoscoping and travel mattes.

Mark Allen · April 25, 2005

I'll agree with that.

Between clever use of doubles and split screening (even using a little roto on the screens) you can create a pretty convincnig effect.

When the scene is blocked be sure to actually use two actors and get the acting naturally - then see how would be best to cover the action.

If you want to avoid the static camera "effect" cue- you can blow your image up about 10 percent and add a little bit of camera follow. with dvx it might get a tad soft, but something to experiment with.

Robert Hughes · April 25, 2005

If you ever get a chance to see an episode from "the Patty Duke Show" from the 50's and early 60's you can see plenty of well done examples of matte shots. Very simple in concept and execution for 35mm film, the cameraman would place a black plate over the left half of the frame and shoot Patty Duke in the right half of the frame. Rewind the film, reverse the plate to cover the other half, and reshoot the other half of the scene with Patty's "cousin". Again, these were simple stationary setups, and the center of the frame was designed so that any fogginess or instability would not be noticable. Patty Duke was a b&w program, no green screen was needed.

Rik Andino · April 25, 2005

The double exposure method can be tricky to master...

You should carefully storyboard your shots

And it takes a helluva time to render in post...

You might be better off just shooting it in greenscreen.

If you don't like the way chroma-key shots come out on MiniDV

Shoot HD--I know easier said than done...

But beware

You'll have a hard time accomplishing this shot either way you go

Good Luck

Mark Allen · April 25, 2005

The double exposure method can be tricky to master...
And it takes a helluva time to render in post...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't agree about the post render. Greenscreen is a much much longer render in post. Rendering two images with one matted cleverly into the other is really no render time at all unless you're using a very old computer. I think my G5 would do that in miniDV real time. Almost sure of it since it nearly plays back HD uncompressed in real time without hardware.

I think the only tricky part is making it feel natural... You shoot both on the same set (no need for the blackscreen trick since you'll just comp it in FCP).

drew_town · April 25, 2005

Greenscreen is a much much longer render in post. Rendering two images with one matted cleverly into the other is really no render time at all unless you're using a very old computer. I think my G5 would do that in miniDV real time. Almost sure of it since it nearly plays back HD uncompressed in real time without hardware.

Right on. Technically it's not tricky at all. Unless you're doing garbage or travel mattes, it should work in real time. It can, however, take a little time to get the aesthetics looking good or convincing. Kind of like split-screen shots- cake to pull off technically but can quickly become confusing.

Jon Allen · April 27, 2005

I would recommend shooting both sides then just matting out one side in post. The original "Parent Trap" (Haley Mills) had this a lot.

The compression on the DV footage would kill any chance of a "realistic" key anyway. So I think you're better off cropping sides of an image even if the camera is static.

Remember to watch the lighting!

David Cox · April 27, 2005

If you really want to get complicated and give yourself some fun in post (!!), shoot with a second actor of the right build and do a head replacement. We've done a couple of head replacements recently, albeit for completely different reasons.

Basically you shoot with the second actor, then shoot the first actors head at the right angles and matte / track that over the [wrong] actors head from the neckline up, which involves removing that head with a clean plate.

Not exactly a beginners post solution, but the result is you have no obvious green screen comps and you can have interaction between the actors - shaking hands, passing objects etc.

Not easy, but then green screens can be a b*tch to get to look convincing too.

JFK: "We choose to go to the moon.....not because it is easy, but because it is hard"

David Cox

Baraka Post Production

www.baraka.co.uk

Jon Allen · April 28, 2005

If you really want to get complicated and give yourself some fun in post (!!), shoot with a second actor of the right build and do a head replacement. We've done a couple of head replacements recently, albeit for completely different reasons.

Basically you shoot with the second actor, then shoot the first actors head at the right angles and matte / track that over the [wrong] actors head from the neckline up, which involves removing that head with a clean plate.

Not exactly a beginners post solution, but the result is you have no obvious green screen comps and you can have interaction between the actors - shaking hands, passing objects etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I remember watching the special features of "The One" starring Jet Li. They went to a lot of pains to do head replacements for the last fight sequence between the good and bad Li. I thought it turned out really well. Sometimes I caught myself thinking "Jet Li is fighting himself" it was pretty cool.

Chris Cooke · May 8, 2005

Thanks for the tips guys. I ended up doing the double exposure method and it turned out great. What made this even trickier was the fact that we shot it on two different days at an airport because the actress had to dye her hair when she played the twin. The one day we shot it during the day and the next time, we had to shoot at night. This made the lighting a little tricky, getting it the exact same but we had digital pictures of the cameras LCD monitor from the previous shoot. The other thing that really helped was that I made sure that there was a corner in the wall right between the twins so that when we edited we could use that corner as a cropping point. It turned out great so thanks for all the tips and I'll use more of them on future shoots.