Placing one subject in the same shot twice?

qsnow1 wrote on 2/9/2006, 5:51 PM

I'm trying to do something of which I can't figure out (maybe I can't do it with VMS?).

I took a video (camera on tripod so it was stationary) of me in one situation, walked out of the shot, waited a few seconds, walked back in the shot and stood in a different position and performed another action. I am able to split the video up into clips and put them on different tracks appropriately - but is there a way I can successfully merge these two clips so it appears I am talking to myself?

I don't know what this type of effect is called, so I've had a hard to searching for something like this. I have tried messing with the track levels, luminance masks, multiply masks, etc. but everything either comes out very dark, washed out, or the sections of me in both have me somewhat transparent.

Any pointers?

Comments

rustier wrote on 2/9/2006, 6:37 PM

I sent my mother a christmas dvd of a singing trio of myself. Use good lighting that wont change, no open windows with cars driving by etc. I divided my screen by an object with about the same line ie window, door, entertainment center - anything with a vertical line to help disguise any seams (which if your lighting is good will be hard to pick out anyway.) Use the pan to slide each shot to the "seam" where you will join them, i.e. video 1 will have half shot left, 2 will have half shot right. You will have to check the properties "source" and set stretch to fill frame to "no" and if necessary maintain aspect to "no". White mask on number 1, video on number 2,3 and 4 (if you do a trio). I am not sure why you had dark or washed out issues. This way works well. I used a micro cassette tape and a concealed ear piece to sync up my dialogue (and singing). Cheap, simple and easy. You can always stretch or crunch the sound if you need to "make it fit". You dont need to mess with luminance or track levels with this method.

I believe the method is called split screen. There is a split screen effect in the media generator which you can use if you want. I think the solid white is easier to adjust the "seam" and in my case add a third video.

p.s. you gotta have the white mask (in SVMS anyway). If you don't use it and look at your video in preview it may appear fine but will render wrong.

dibbkd wrote on 2/9/2006, 9:04 PM

What rustier said was correct, but specifically, what I used was the Cookie Cutter Video FX, the "top left portrait", then you just make it cover half the screen.

This is my example of "Two of Me"

The voices are out of sync because I added the voice after the fact just to have a little dialoge.

qsnow1 wrote on 2/10/2006, 1:41 PM

Ah... that makes sense. I was able to make a quick rudimentary split screen. I didn't do the white mask thing (mainly because I still wasn't sure how I needed to go about doing that.

Sorry for my confusions (or lack of experience) the other thread your also helping me with I think is somewhat related at this point. Also in my SVMS you mentioned there was a split screen media generator/effect? I don't see it in my install so I am wondering if I'm missing something or if I am just blind.

Thanks a ton for all the help here - it's really helping my learning curve with this thing.

khersee wrote on 2/10/2006, 5:53 PM

Hey, that was pretty cool. Now, this is doable in VMS 6? Kirk

dibbkd wrote on 2/10/2006, 7:58 PM

If you're referring to my "two of me" video, yes, that was done with VMS 6, just use the Cookie Cutter Video FX, the "top left portrait", then you just make it cover half the screen.

It's pretty easy actually once you play around with it a bit.

Keep the camera still on a tripod, and just walk to each of the sides of the room you'll be on. Takes a bit of editing, maybe I'll post a quick tutorial later.

Oh yeah, after I completed the video, I rendered and then pan/cropped it to make it look like the camera was moving around on me.

qsnow1 wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:17 PM

Thanks. This stuff has been a big help :-)

I ran across this in Sony's Knowledge base. It was for vegas, not vms - but I am wondering if we can get anything close to this effect of difference masks? Maybe just not as perfect due to a limited number of video tracks - or are we missing core functionality to something like this?

dibbkd wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:17 PM

I am wondering if we can get anything close to this effect of difference masks?

I'm not sure what you mean by the effect of difference masks. Can you paste a link to what you found in the knowledge base?

I only needed two video tracks to do what I did in my video, just used the cookie cutter fx, and it was pretty easy. Doing it this way you don't even need to split the room in half with a vertical line or anything, the cookie cutter makes it seamless no matter where you are in the room.

And you can actually have four video and audio tracks in VMS, the default is just three each.

qsnow1 wrote on 2/13/2006, 12:31 PM

Whoops. Sorry about that. I had copied the link to the clipboard and just never pasted it :-)

http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1049&p_created=1082664742&p_sid=WfjhJ4*h&p_accessibility=0&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NSZwX3Byb2RzPTAmcF9jYXRzPTAmcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PW1hc2s*&p_li=&p_topview=1

(Knowledgebase -> search for masks)

Upon further reading it looks like there is a lot of composite features we don't have, so I dont think anything like the above can be done (having the same subject interact more closely in the same scene).

dibbkd wrote on 2/13/2006, 1:30 PM

With the a href HTML tag, you can make your links short and sweet:

Difference Tutorial

And yes, I believe that feature is only available in the full Vegas.