Keyframing or chroma keying closet in an environment?

At work, we are planning a movie which involves a closet(much like Narnia). We are planning to let the kids "travel" to exotic places. I have a lot of clips from exotic places, and I would like to put this closet in this place and have the kids to go out and explore the are around the closet. The best way is probably to set up a green screen?

How about this: I use a mask filter to put the closet in the environment. Closet is placed 5-10 meters from camera(well, I will let the audience to believe that it's 5-10 meters). The kids open the door, just standing inside the closet, and then close it.
I think I have to mask the inside of the closet and keyframe when opening the door?

How about when standing in the closet and opening the door. I have tried key framing when opening the door, but it's hard. But think it's dueable. But what is the best option here? Put green screen in front to cover the view from inside the closet?

I would simply line the inside of the closet with green screen, hide some lights in there to get it bright. Keying would be the easiest.

BenB wrote: I would simply line the inside of the closet with green screen, hide some lights in there to get it bright. Keying would be the easiest.

Where are you now? Not sure I'm following... What scene?

The scene where I want the kids to walk around I will let the audience believe that the camera is 5-10 meters from the camera.

So you mean to shoot from inside the closet, looking out? If you shoot from outside looking in, then to shoot from inside looking out, for consistency, I'd take that closet door, put it in a doorway of a room that allows you to work in. The audience will only see the door an a little bit of the wall. Closets are small, right?

I wouldn't waste too much time upon the inside of the cabinet (that's tricky to light), ...
Just use some 'movie magic': when the kids first time encounter the cabinet, add sound effects, some "Ommmm"-choir - the usual stuff :lol: to establish it without words as "This Is A Magic Cabinet!"



same with the transfer:
use some pixie-dust to let the cabinet appear in the new scene, and let the kids come out of it..
(you can crop the green-screen, so no need for a full-flavored-green-screen-studio)





maybe adding some bright light into the cabinet, glow, light-beams .. fog?? :silly:

I'm actually the 'vfx-supervisor' (whohooo! ) of a movie-project at my son's school - so, we discuss those options right now too...

BenB wrote: So you mean to shoot from inside the closet, looking out? If you shoot from outside looking in, then to shoot from inside looking out, for consistency, I'd take that closet door, put it in a doorway of a room that allows you to work in. The audience will only see the door an a little bit of the wall. Closets are small, right?

I'm thinking that the first shot after the kids have entered the closet from the real world, is a shot from outside looking AT the closet from a distance so I get the surroundings. Then we can see the door opens, and second shot from inside looking out, slowly see the door opens while the scenery from the previous shot is shown, only from a different angel(of course).

Yup, this closet has to be small. Only fitting 2 or 3 kids.

Nice one, Karsten!

I think the tricky part is lightening, so I need some good lamps.

With the trimming of the green screen, it was quite easy to fill the outside. So easy. I think we're getting somewhere with this

Neguah wrote: ... I think the tricky part is lightening, so I need some good lamps. ...

For that school-project, I mentioned, we do have the worse green-screen imaginable! :lol:
The cloth is stitched by different materials, we have just a few lights.. but: FCPX does an awesome job!

We did another shot, using sunlight:
The green cloth was attached to some house-wall, a few meters away stood our 'actors' (we used card-boards to 'adjust' lights/shadows), another 10m away the cam: using a tele-lense gave us some surprising good results!

... the most tricky part, and we haven't solved this for our project, is 'walking' upon a green-screen. However you lit the scene, the feet create shadows, create a bad key. We solved that by 'editing': an establishing shot far far away = you don't notice the bad key, too far away, then cut: close-ups.

... our job here wasn't a cabinet, but a drwarf creeping out of a box ... so 'perspective' was a huge issue here.- But, it's a Kid's Movie, nobody expects from us ILM-standards! :lol:

btw: these illustrations are from some website for the school I made, unfortunately, I can not link to it - not public/too much © infringements.., (I'm plundering all sources!)

enjoy your project - always fun to film with kids!

Much similar to what we are planning.

When you say "walking" upon a green screen, you mean walking on the green screen with the sun behind the actor? Can't you lid up the green screen in the area where the shadow hits?

I know, school project and kindergarden project doesn't have much budget. And we have to work with what we got.

I tried you images in FCPX and tried keying. Was easy. Understand a lot more now. So I'm looking forward to try this.

So you biggest concern and tricky part is only the shadow? Is there anything else I need to think about before saying yes to this?
I'm travelling to the Philippines in march, and I'm going to film some sceneries where we can place the closet.
And the travel is not covered by work, it's a private trip. While there, I can as well shoot some footages for the movie

Neguah wrote: … When you say "walking" upon a green screen, you mean walking on the green screen with the sun behind the actor? Can't you lid up the green screen in the area where the shadow hits?...

No, not the big-drop shadow of the actor:
The tiny shadow very close to the feet, around the shoe ...

If you place anything onto a green ground, intended to be keyed, that 'contact zone' is really tricky! Under our less-than-optimum circumstances, we notice all sorts of 'flicker' btw. the green and the subject/object, e.g. a shoe.

For tiny objects, I've seen constructions, made of a glas-plate, and with some distance the green bg - no use for persons.

And I was told, there are 'self illuminating foils' (=no external light needed, these foils get some Volts and the produce light) - way too expensive.

Interesting enough: in all making-ofs I've seen so far, professionals doesn't seem to have this problem - Jedis, Avengers, Gatsbys - all walking on green grounds = no flicker, no flimmer, no nothing! :blush:


Concerning drop-shadows:
We do re-enact them to add 'realism'!
Our dwarf doesn't drop a real shadow in the green-screen, but to create the illusion, he stands on a white table, we doubled the clip, made it all-black and semi-transparent and transformed the silhouette, so it does look like a drop-shadow..
(I really have to make some copies of that material - as long as I pixel the kids, this shouldn't be a problem.. a nice screen-shot with some red arrows applied is better than my 1k words of pidgin english!)

... the kids LOVE to do special effects! They feel, they get told some secrets

In our case we will put the closet onto the green, and we will also have the kids to walk on it. I guess that's where the headache starts. Perhaps someone in here know how to avoid the flicker. Is it really bothering? Since this is a kids movie.

Need to get back to this tread to read about drop-shadow if we get that problem. Don't quite understand that yet but just reading.

Neguah wrote: ... Don't quite understand that yet but just reading.

sorry, too much detail, and too much talking in a foreign language.

Examples:
Imagine, this shoe was recorded in some green screen environment … green get keyed to white: you'll notice in the 'shadows' a bad key:



hard to fix that - adding light would make the shoe too bright.

and concerning 'artificial drop shadows':
Batman in a green-screen, keyed to white.
Track with Batman doubled, that track's colors are set to black-only, comp is set to 30% transparency, transformation 'bends' frame as if a shadow:

Ahh, I see. I think I understand better.

I think you handle you english quite well. English is also not my first language. I was once told that english is a forgiven language. It's quite easy to understand, even with a lot of written and oral mistakes.

I can't understand most native English speakers, anyway. Y'all are probably doing a better job with it then we do.

Neguah wrote: ... I was once told that english is a forgiven language. It's quite easy to understand, even with a lot of written and oral mistakes.

My problem is: at school, I was lazy - English wasn't my cup of tea.
10y later, I had for a short time an American girlfriend - she taught me things .. and 'speaking English'... no, American (she was from SF).

Huuuuge difference! That funny dialog from Casablanca? When the German emigrants train their English skils: "What watch? Ten watch, darling! Oh, so much ?!" ... completely senseless for British, Americans laugh about it...

so, I'm speaking Simplified American English ... :silly:

BenB wrote: I can't understand most native English speakers, anyway. ....

... I don't do with younger Germans either!! :woohoo:

Karsten Schlüter wrote: My problem is: at school, I was lazy - English wasn't my cup of tea.
10y later, I had for a short time an American girlfriend - she taught me things .. and 'speaking English'... no, American (she was from SF).

You and me both. I also grew up not caring so much for school as I should have done.
Movies, books, travel and the need to know the english has given me better skills. Still learning, picking up words everywhere

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