If you've seen any of the behind-the-scenes videos on the movie Automata (2014), you'll know that the robots, rather than being CGI, where mostly puppets, with the puppeteers being dressed in green suits so that could easily be composited out afterwards using chroma key. I was wondering how hard it would be to do something similar using nothing but my cellphone camera and a copy of Final Cut Pro X at the public library, so I donned a green bodysuit from a costume store, shot some video of myself holding a stuffed dragon, and edited the footage to see if I could remove myself from the video. The idea would be that I could remove myself and leave only the dragon, dancing on my living room couch.
The results weren't great, but the were a bit better than I expected. If you need a cheap and dirty Predator cloaking effect, it certainly works. However, I do think you can make this technique work reasonably well on a low budget. Here's some things I learned from the process:
1) Use the best quality camera you possibly can and the highest reasonable resolution. (This probably goes for any type of footage you're trying to chroma key.
2) Keep the footage in the least compressed format you can, preferably RAW. Compression artifacts are the mortal enemy of chroma key compositing.
3) Make sure you aren't casting any shadows on the background. You may want to consider carefully arranging your lighting to avoid this problem. I'd suggest doing a camera test to be sure. It helps to be as far from a background wall as possible, preferably outside in the middle of a field.
4) Sadly, the trick of focusing on the subject and letting the keying surface blur in the background won't work here because the puppeteer must necessarily be close to the subject of the camera.
5) Get as much diffused light on the keying surface as possible. The best conditions will probably be outdoors when it's overcast, where you'll have lots of ambient light but very little direct light.
6) If possible, don't have the puppeteer on camera at all. Use painted poles, and if the puppeteer must necessarily be in the shot, put up a screen in front of them so you're keying out a flat surface instead of a suit, which is going to have a lot of wrinkles and shadows. Just keep the suit handy as insurance in case the puppeteer keeps accidentally entering the frame.
7) Make sure that your puppet and background are sufficiently different in tint from your keying color. For example, if you're keying color is green, you might not want to use a puppet with the color cyan, or have a slightly greenish background (although that's less of a problem).
8) Similarly, if you're going to film in a grassy field, naturally you'll want to use blue instead of green for your chroma key color.
9) If you can figure out how to do it, it's probably a good idea to lock your camera's settings for a shot so that it doesn't dynamically adjust anything over time. That way, you can record footage to composite, then film the shot with the puppets, and the color balance and focus won't change, giving you a much better result.
10) Those colored bodysuits are pretty skin-tight, so you might want to work out a bit if you plan to put one on, especially if you're filming outdoors.
Any thoughts on how this can be improved?
The results weren't great, but the were a bit better than I expected. If you need a cheap and dirty Predator cloaking effect, it certainly works. However, I do think you can make this technique work reasonably well on a low budget. Here's some things I learned from the process:
1) Use the best quality camera you possibly can and the highest reasonable resolution. (This probably goes for any type of footage you're trying to chroma key.
2) Keep the footage in the least compressed format you can, preferably RAW. Compression artifacts are the mortal enemy of chroma key compositing.
3) Make sure you aren't casting any shadows on the background. You may want to consider carefully arranging your lighting to avoid this problem. I'd suggest doing a camera test to be sure. It helps to be as far from a background wall as possible, preferably outside in the middle of a field.
4) Sadly, the trick of focusing on the subject and letting the keying surface blur in the background won't work here because the puppeteer must necessarily be close to the subject of the camera.
5) Get as much diffused light on the keying surface as possible. The best conditions will probably be outdoors when it's overcast, where you'll have lots of ambient light but very little direct light.
6) If possible, don't have the puppeteer on camera at all. Use painted poles, and if the puppeteer must necessarily be in the shot, put up a screen in front of them so you're keying out a flat surface instead of a suit, which is going to have a lot of wrinkles and shadows. Just keep the suit handy as insurance in case the puppeteer keeps accidentally entering the frame.
7) Make sure that your puppet and background are sufficiently different in tint from your keying color. For example, if you're keying color is green, you might not want to use a puppet with the color cyan, or have a slightly greenish background (although that's less of a problem).
8) Similarly, if you're going to film in a grassy field, naturally you'll want to use blue instead of green for your chroma key color.
9) If you can figure out how to do it, it's probably a good idea to lock your camera's settings for a shot so that it doesn't dynamically adjust anything over time. That way, you can record footage to composite, then film the shot with the puppets, and the color balance and focus won't change, giving you a much better result.
10) Those colored bodysuits are pretty skin-tight, so you might want to work out a bit if you plan to put one on, especially if you're filming outdoors.
Any thoughts on how this can be improved?
