Animated photos within a moving camera shot

norman_bates wrote on 2/28/2004, 7:42 PM

I want to have a picture on the front of a newspaper go from a static picture to a video. The tricky part is that the whole shot will be in motion as the camera pans and jiggles (intentionally).
There is an excellent example of what I mean here:
http://www.youthunlimited.com/yfc_regeneration.wmv (~12MB)
Is this possible within Vegas? Is it also possible to do without chroma keying - if you wanted to get fancy and replace the contents of a billboard on the side of the road as the camera moves past it?
The guy who created the above video is from ASTRiD Multimedia:
http://www.astrid.ca/index.cfm
and he answered question similar to this one at the creative cow forums, stating that he did it all in after effects.
Surely Vegas could do it to without having to create a million keyframes by hand?
Thanks
Norm

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 2/28/2004, 8:05 PM

Simple enough in Vegas. Frankly all that jumping around screams I'm a amateur, that the effect you want?

I couple dozen keyframes or so should do it, not a million.

rebel44 wrote on 2/29/2004, 6:08 AM

Frankly-I do not know if there are any software that will automate the proccess. If you have good effects- you have to do the time.
Keyframe it is the option.

DGrob wrote on 2/29/2004, 6:20 AM

You might also do a search here for "Vegas Quake." An excellent script with a GUI for manipulating the degree of shake. DGrob

norman_bates wrote on 2/29/2004, 6:42 AM

Thanks BB and R44. I'm shooting some test footage today and I'll have a play around with it and see what I can come up with.

SonyEPM wrote on 2/29/2004, 7:31 AM

An effect like this needs to be planned and shot with the final effect in mind- keying video over a randomly moving shot is going to be impossible (unless you don't mind obvious/hokey).

Here's how I'd do it:

Have the talent hold up the paper (the movement of the paper is important), cut (during the move) to a static of the paper with the video keyed into the right spot (desaturated, matching contrast). The cut point is important here- one frame this way or that way makes a big difference.

Right after the cut, fly the video off the paper to full screen, blending back in the proper color/contrast etc. Add a little zoom to the paper/video composite pair if needed.

johnmeyer wrote on 2/29/2004, 8:23 AM

I agree with Sony. The paper needs to move slightly. However, I think you can key in the results, depending on how much time you want to spend setting up your key points.

I just did exactly the same thing, where a basketball team had just won the championship and I wanted to show the new banner on the wall of the gym (they aren't physically put up until the end of the year). I used my photo editing program to composite existing banners in order to create a static shot of the new banner and saved it as a PNG with a transparent background. The shot of the existing array of banners was handheld. I then overlaid my banner on the upper track, and used track motion, every frame or two, to keep the banner moving with the slight motion of the hand-held shot (it was hand-held, but it was pretty steady).

I would suggest that you lock down the shot of the talent holding the paper, but let them hold it naturally, which means it will move around slightly. Do what I did, and I think it will look great. Actually, you have an easier thing to do because you are inserting live video, not a still photo, and since it has movement, the eye should be more forgiving if your keyframe is off slightly.

You might also get away with a little if you soften the edges of your insert ever so slightly.