Things I Learned: Green Screen – Part 2

This is Part 2 of Things I Learned: Green Screen. These are things I learned from my first time working with green screen. If you missed it, check out Part 1 which covered the setup and the shoot.

Post Production

Before I started to talking about the post production stuff, it might be nice to show you the final product from my first green screen shoot. So here you go.

My post workflow for this project was definitely unique. Introducing the keying element complicated things a little more than normal. For most projects, I do 95% in Final Cut Pro: importing footage, cutting, audio, and basic grading. If it is needed, I’ll occasionally cleanup or adjust audio with Soundtrack Pro and add titles with After Effects.

At first, I tried to do my keying in FCP. I used the plugin Primatte RT. It did a decent job, but lacked controls for fine tweaking. If quick is what you need, then this might be a good path for you. I ended up waiting to key the footage until I sent my edit to After Effects because I had no Idea how to export a sequnce from FCP with an alpha channel.

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Sketched/Scribble Text Tutorial Using After Effects CS3

Ever wondered how people make that scribbly filled-in text? I used to wonder how to create that look, but never found a tutorial for it. So I decided to make one. This tutorial will walk you through using the Scribble effect and the Write-on effect in After Effects CS3 to create this cool and handy animated text look.

Final Product

Before We Begin

There are two things you need before we get started.

• First, to easily turn outlined text into masks, grab the “rd_ShapesToMasks” script from redefinery.com. Once yo’ve downloaded the file, unzip the script and place it in After Effect’s script folder.
• Second, download Agent Orange font from dafont.com if you want to use the same font I used.

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Real Snow vs Fake Snow

I totally misjudged snow in a commercial. For this holiday season Famous Footwear has a new commercial spot. I saw it once and thought that the snow falling was an After Effects created effect. That’s what inspired my tutorial on creating snow in After Effects. Here’s the commercial.

I was wrong.

Come to find out the commercial’s DP was Vincent Laforet. On his blog, he talks about the whole project. It was shot at 600 fps with 225,000 Watts of light! And real snow. You need to check out his blog and read about this commercial.

P.S. If you didn’t know, Vincent Laforet has been one of the biggest proponents of DSLRs for video. He’s a great resources if you are a DSLR video shooter.

Realistic Snow Tutorial in After Effects

The day after Thanksgiving it feels like the world has gone full-tilt into Christmas mode. I try to make a habit of avoiding Black Friday shopping if at all possible. This year, I spent the day relaxing and working on a simple holiday After Effects project. Part the project was creating a realistic layer of falling snow for the background using CC Particle World—a plugin bundled with CS3. (This is key: many of the tutorials out there use Trapcode Particular which is a fairly spendy plugin). It definitely adds a little bit of holiday cheer. And I thought I will share a quick tutorial to make your own snow layer.

1. Open a new Composition.
2. Create a new solid layer.
3. In your Effects & Presets panel, type in CC Particle World and add it to the solid layer.
4. First, there are a couple settings we need to change to make it easier.
5. Turn “Grid” to Off.
6. Under the Particle section, change type to “Darken & Faded Sphere.”
   

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Free Motion Template: Clean & Simple Lower Third

A couple weeks ago, I was looking around online for an HD lower third Motion template that I could buy for a project, but I found nothing that was simple. Most of the ones I found were complex or had too many moving parts. So I made this one. And now I’m making it available for FREE!

Download Clean & Simple Lower Third Motion Template

Once you download it, it’s super easy to customize. Just replace the TITLE & SUBTITLE text, drop in your logo directly below the INSERT LOGO layer, delete the INSERT LOGO layer, and you’re good to go.

I’ve also created an Adobe After Effects CS3 version that you could purchase for a small price, but it includes 12 different color variations and compositions ready to export at both 720p & 1080p. You can find this item at VideoHive.net: Clean & Simple Lower Third Pack.

Leaves you unsatisfied

One of the problem with learning programs like Adobe’s After Effects is that it takes way to much time to put together a substantial product. I’ve noticed that the videos that I have been making have been really short and leaves you feeling like there should have been something more to it.

I think that is especially the case with the project I did last night. Can you spot the thing that really makes it leave you unsatisfied? Watch it and see if you get it.

You don’t know? The elipses. It’s kinda like you thought I was going to say something else about bubbles, right?

Anyway, about the video: There were two things I learned from this project.

• I learned how to better manipulate and create particles using the CC Particle World plugin.
• I had to come up with a way to reveal the word “Bubbles” only using the tools in After Effects. No stock footage was used to make the water-like reveal effect.

In conclusion, I think my 365 Project is turning into a 52 Week Project with After Effects. And I’m okay with that.

Let me know if you have any suggestions are ideas of things I should try. I’m always having a hard time knowing where to start.

Day 24: Fire in the Disco

I’ve been on an After Effects kick lately, so motion graphics seem to be what I am creating. Unfortunately, they take way more time then designing a little fish. For the video projects, it generally takes me one day to create the basic project and another couple days of refining when I have time.

Day 24′s project, though, was done in one sitting. The goal was to learn a little about particle creation using the CC Particle World plugin for After Effects. I would say I accomplished the learning part, but not really the attractive project part. Oh well…

Side note: The “Fire in the Disco” line was inspired by the Electric Six song Danger! High Voltage.