Let's get this straight. This girl just wants to have fun. Fun is not organizing 20+ people and moving them from location to location. So, I had this brilliant idea. Let's do EVERYTHING using chroma-key! Then I need never leave the comfort of my wushuguan to film, and I can have any background I desire.
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| In the background, a blue screen, aka. the bane of my existence. |
Oh, if only I'd have known to kill myself then. Instead, I have spent the endless days of the editing process praying for sweet death.
Silly me. I thought that so long as my victims-- er, actors -- didn't wear anything close to the shade of blue used by the chroma-key drapes, I'd be golden.
Yeah, laugh it up. I'm glad you find my naivete amusing.
When the beautiful teal color of Cindy's Grand Ninja outfit (below) played havoc with my blue screen chroma-key function in Sony Vegas HD11, I thought I would get around it by investing in a green screen. Boo-yah! Take that, chroma-key!
Silly me. I thought that so long as my victims-- er, actors -- didn't wear anything close to the shade of blue used by the chroma-key drapes, I'd be golden.
Yeah, laugh it up. I'm glad you find my naivete amusing.
When the beautiful teal color of Cindy's Grand Ninja outfit (below) played havoc with my blue screen chroma-key function in Sony Vegas HD11, I thought I would get around it by investing in a green screen. Boo-yah! Take that, chroma-key!
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| Hah! Take that, blue screen! I shall defeat you with my GREEN screen-BAM! |
All the green in the teal keyed out. Instant unwanted costume color change.
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| FML |
I ended up going with the original blue screen footage, with tons of creative and time-consuming editing to ameliorate both the horrendous ghosting (a result of poor hanging of the screens) and the wave-like rise and fall of the hand-held camera (another lesson learned: chroma-key + hand-held camera = bad).
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| Oh, Scene 3.... |
Sifu, you have undertaken a huge project that we all appreciate more than you will ever know. Thank you for all the sweat, tears and migraines that you have put into this. When it's all said and done, it will be incredible. Then if you ever decide to do it again, you will be an old hat at it and make something even more amazing. From all of us, your humble Wushu students, thank you so very much!
ReplyDeleteDespite all the headaches (both literal and figurative), this has been a truly rewarding experience. I got out of my way-too-comfortable comfort zone. I leaped off the cliff and somehow missed the rocks. I'm learning. Learning. Learning. Learning. And if all I carry away from this is the notion that sometimes you just gotta jump and trust the gods, well, I think I came out ahead.
DeleteMore to come? You bet! I'm jumping. What the hell; I've got 20+ crazy-creative students to catch me. =)
And we will! =)
ReplyDelete