Superimpose photo into a video

Is it possible to superimpose a head shot photo onto a person standing still in a video shoot. What I am trying to do is film someone in a particular place and in post superimpose their young face onto them. Then after a few seconds during which there will be voice over and crowds moving around this person, "morph" or reveal the older face of that person as they are today, before they then move off to the next part of the scene.

I guess CGA could do it, but that's nhowhere near my realm.

Any ideas?

What you want to do can be quite complex.

If the person is completely standing still you could indeed replace his face with a photo. You will have to make sure that the position and perspective of the actual face of the person standing still in the video perfectly matches the position and perspective of the face on the photo, which will not be an easy task. If those two match, replacing the live face with the photo can be done quite easily. Will it look perfectly realistic? No, but probably that is not your intention either.


The next difficult part will be the "crowds moving around this person" as you will have to mask/animate (rotoscope) out every object that passes in front of the superimposed photo. You could shoot the person with a blue hood over his head and replace the blue with the photo in post to avoid having to rotoscope, but this will bring other complications to the shooting and the compositing.


And finally the morphing part. You can use a specific morphing plugin such as this one: www.chvplugins.com/cms/FxPlug/Morphing/Morphing.php5

Morphing non-moving objects is not very complex. But even with a dedicated plugin you will need a lot of time and patience to make the transitions look fluid.

Note: you also could use Optical Flow to "morph" masked elements one into the other, but the results are quite unpredictable and cannot be compared to a real morph tool in any way.

So either you let a dedicated CGFX company do this for you and this will not be cheap, or you try to DIY and you spend a lot of time and effort trying to not make it look cheap.

- Ronny

Well thanks Ronny, at least I now know it's possible. I reckon with this particular person it would be quite funny to video him in a blue hood, might be an improvement. (we are good freinds) However I will probably give that a miss. I will investigate more on rotorscoping. Are you aware of any good tutorials I could look at.

The whole exercise sounds challenging but could turn out well. I reckon its worth a go. One thing I do have at my disposal right now is time.

That link doesn't want to open for me.

Douglas

Hi Doug,

Yep, it will be quite a challenge but if you have any difficulties feel free to post back here.

Try this link instead:

www.chv-plugins.com/cms/FCPX-Motion5.php5?navanchor=1010047

Then scroll down to Morphing FX. Christoph (the maker of these plugins) mentions that the plugin is currently only working with Motion 5 and not with the latest update of FCP X due to the changed plugin interface. I'm sure he will post an update as soon as he can.

- Ronny

Oh yes, you asked about rotoscoping as well.

Actually this is nothing more or less than animated masking. Motion 5 is pretty good at this without the need for any third party plugins. If you want to do it in FCP X you will need the SliceX/Mocha plugin.

Actually I haven't found any decent video tutorial on how to do complex animated masking in Motion 5. Guess I will have to make one whenever I find the time. But this tutorial will certainly get you started: www.macprovideo.com/hub/motion/animating-shape-masks-in-motion

- Ronny

Doug108 wrote: ... Any ideas?

I guess, Ronny gave the major hint. 'cheap'.

If you want it 'realistic', you'll soon stumble into the Uncanny Valley-effect: for realistic, you'd spend a fortune ...

But why not vice versa:
You know of the talking-faces at the Conan O'Brien Show?
(e.g. )

this is done cheap, looks cheap, but is hillarious!
by good preparation, this is a no-brainer with FCPX.

if your story allows it, I would think about that ........
plus, with some smart 'blocking/staging' and editing of the scene you can avoid complex masking. People often make the mistake to think of scenes as on a theatre stage = single, unedited shots of minutes of material (as in socalled plan-sequences). But not so: establish the scene without 'covering' the actors; get some nice close-ups; get some counter-shots = no v/fx needed, but establishing 'crowded place'; perhaps do one or two 'covers' by some unsharp movement in the foreground (maybe done as a green-screen to apply it quiet easy to your Project).

Thanks Karsten not sure if hilarious will fit the story we are trying to get too, but thanks for the tips anyway. Some more to think about and play with.

Cool Stuff Ronny, A tutorial would be great, when you get time.