Cool Effect - How best to achieve it?

Eddy Bee wrote on 3/28/2012, 5:13 AM

This excellent little video uses a creative visual effect that is not uncommon:

http://thestevenalan.com/post/19691884631/ben-and-i-went-around-the-island-taking-photos

Trying to do this on my own, I was able to get fairly decent results using PIP and manually aligning the overlay image within an empty picture frame. It's a pretty tedious process that requires frame by frame alignment, and gets really tricky because the frame is moving in 3D space, so it's not just X and Y coordinates that need to be in alignment.

I'm wondering if there's a better way to accomplish this effect? Either in how it's shot and/or a software tool that can automate the alignment process.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

ushere wrote on 3/28/2012, 5:56 AM

bloody brilliant - no idea how they did it, but by golly, it's one of the nicest 'clever' video's i've seen in ages.....

farss wrote on 3/28/2012, 6:34 AM

Planar tracking makes it very simple to achieve, the 4 corners of the frame make ideal tracking points.

Bob.

JJKizak wrote on 3/28/2012, 6:57 AM

I believe the older HP commercials used this. It's a wonderment.
JJK

rs170a wrote on 3/28/2012, 7:20 AM

Here's how to do it in Vegas.
Duplicating the Picture Frame Effect in the HP Commercials

Mike

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/28/2012, 7:37 AM

Isn't this something "easily" done with AE, like those "text popping up while talking" videos?

dxdy wrote on 3/28/2012, 8:42 AM

I think this has been talked about before...seems to me that part of it can be achieved using chromakey - put a piece of green paper or cardboard in the frame. Then put the "PIP" video on a lower track. I don't think this handles all the effects, tho.

farss wrote on 3/28/2012, 8:54 AM

"Isn't this something "easily" done with AE"

Yes. All you need is a planar track. From the track data you can control the movement of the image into the frame in 3D. You might be able to do this in Vegas if Boris has a planar tracker for Vegas that can set keyframes for 3D track motion .I guess you could do it by hand in Vegas too but I think after you'd done two images you'd be parting with some hard earned to automate the process as much as possible.

Bob.

Tech Diver wrote on 3/28/2012, 9:24 AM

I use the Corner Pinning filter in Boris Red to do these sorts of things. I'm not sure if it is included in the BCC filter set for Vegas.

Peter