Phil Beastall

I was disappointed when I realised Shake wasn't being made anymore because we have Final Cut Studio and it seemed like the perfect crossover, but when I went into applications looking for it, it wasn't there! Shake does seem to be the one people always talk about...I just need to clear out my brain of old junk before I can fill it with some new Shake knowledge...maybe a heavy night is in order to kill of some memories I don't need anymore?

I am sorry if this has already been answered and I am sure there is not one answer to this, but I am trying to find out an industry leading compositor for chromakeying. What do they use in Hollywood? I am currently using Keylight in After FX and I just don't think its up to scratch...it certainly does the job very well but would love to be using software that is used in high end films/adverts & music videos. Thanks Phil

OK thanks for your advice, I will have a look into it! :)

I have a project coming up and the client wants to have a person walking down the street with a dog. They then want this person to become someone else without the background jumping at all, so a continuous motion. This person will then become someone else, and so on. Considering we will need to see feet, what's the best way to shoot this? Would it need to be on greenscreen on some kind of treadmill? Because I am concerned it might not look great.

Does anyone have any techniques that will allow me to create a really slow tracking movement without having to push it myself. The shot we are after is a time lapse with a slow forward motion, however, because the move forwards has to be so slow, we can't guarantee it'll be smooth when we speed it up. Any thing we can buy like a cheap automated winch?

I'm hoping to film cars passing by at an extremely slow shutter speed to create results you could expect to achieve with stills photography with a shutter speed of 5-10 seconds or slower. Can you recreate this kind of look with video at all? We want to achieve the look of the car headlights rushing past as long beams of light. Please see the attached link as a guide to what I'm after: http://www.danheller.com/images/UnitedStat...-nite-4-big.jpg

Thanks for all your responses. Really appreciate it. Are there any other alternatives considering its low budget and we want to simply shoot both in real time - the background and foreground. Whether it means keeping the movement limited or can we replicate the shot as close as poss, and then in After Effects match the shots with motion tracking or any other clever techniques....Or shall I stop dreaming? :-p

For an upcoming video we're hoping to film inside of a car on green screen, so that the green can be keyed to show a variation of landscapes going by. However, as the camera is going to be moving inside the car, I was wondering what the best way to motion track the movement for the background to work properly is? Would we shoot the green screen footage first and then try and replicate it, or will it be ideal to get motion tracking camera equipment to replicate the motion exactly?

Why is that when you key out a green screen there is often noise around the person being keyed, or the objects in the foreground? Is there a way to remove it? There's a fuzzy pixelated edge to it

I've added rotoscoping to my brain dictionary. Thanks. Out of interest, how do they remove wires in films? It's something I've always wanted to know!

I was pointed in the direction of motion and using motion tracked masks I'm going to overly the reflection onto the eye. Thanks for all your help

I haven't really use masks all that much, I'm just getting into After Effects etc, so was wondering if it would be ok to get a guide through...Nothing overly specific but just a rough idea...?

We've decided to limit the amount of light change within the shot because we simply don't have the facilities to produce it. So one of the of the shots if of a guy walking over a bridge and we wanted the cars in the background to be speeding past, while he walks at a normal pace. I know in Final Cut you can use garbage mattes and make sure the guy is in a segment you can crop off, however, I want the guy to walk in front of the cars that are speeding past. So unless I was somehow able to draw around the guy in each frame to then make him a separate layer, is there a way to do this? Surely it's possible, because in films, if someone is being held up by wires and they need to be removed in post, do they not film the background on its own first, and then shoot the actors on the same background so they can then overlay the two shots and erase anything from the foreground that they need to, leaving them the same background behind in its place. Or, do they do this a different way - either way it will be great to learn what's going on?! The shots I'm suggesting we do this in will all be static so no need to motion track or anything...

Some great ideas there, but lets say we can't do that and I want to do it entirely in post. I have the two shots ready to go - the eye and the figure to put into the eye.

Ideally it would be a clear image. So the viewer can see what is being reflected, as the shot is an ECU of someone's eye.