how would you do this

Hey newbie video guy here again (musician trying to make interesting music vids for my band on the cheap)

I saw this music vid at the gym today, and loved the look.

Particularly the images that look projected on the backgrounds (although I think it's actually supposed to be moving graffiti.) The slow frame rate is easy enough to do, I learned that one last week

I suppose I'd have to figure out first how to get an isolated subject. Shoot in a very dark location with a well-lit subject? Then make the background transparent somehow?

Then I suppose it's just layering the subjects on the background shots, looks like they are at least partially transparent.

Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Geoff

Most of the backgrounds look like animated still images. My guess is that the musicians were shot against a green screen and then colorized and layered.

You have picked another complex one! There are several different techniques employed during the video and they all require a lot of effort and knowledge. No quick fixes.
Why don't you try something dead simple and automatic?
Here's one suggestion which will literally take you 5 seconds . . . shoot you and your band and add the Scene Removal Mask whereupon you can add any background you wish. Here I have removed the garden and substituted some of the psychedelic Generators from FCP. You can of course add any other effects you wish to spice things up even more . . . strobe effects, cartoon, negative , monochrome etc. etc. all at the click of a button . . . no time or effort required.

haha i know   

Scene removal mask, I will give that a spin!! thanks

The camera must be on a tripod and you must shoot a second or so of the background before the talent moves into shot. This is because FCP looks at the first or last second of the video to see what it must remove.
Ideally the background should be as simple or plain as possible.
I shot in a garden with lots of fussy detail to see how good the key would be under somewhat adverse conditions. It wasn't perfect but it was pretty darned good and obviates the need for a green/blue screen.

Sounds good!  I can do tripod!

Reviving this topic for another question.  

I had good success with the background removal technique, either green screen or scene removal mask.  Isolating the subject turns out to be relatively easy.  

My next thought is how to project an image of the subject (now without background) onto objects on another clip.  As if I were projecting from a film camera onto the background objects.  For example, here is a  clip with a long flat table.  How would i make the subject appear as if he were projected onto the table from above?  (like he was a 2D image, contained in the surface of the table.)

I played around with the transform controls, but that doesn't seem to quite get me there - maybe I just don't know how to work it properly though.    

Any ideas on this?  

Again, I'm probably asking how to paint the mona lisa in a day, but I can't help my curiosity!

Thanks in advance for any ideas!
Geoff

First thought . . . which could be completely wrong, is to align the 4 corners of the surrounding rectangle with the corners of the table and fiddle about from there.
Note the technical terminology, "fiddle about".

Ok, had moderate success with the "distort" feature rather than transform, doing as you suggested inbro, mapping the corners to the corners and doing the old industry standard, fiddling with it.

Still looks a little 3d for my taste, but reducing the opacity and washing out some of the color helps.

This technique will obviously only work on flat surfaces, and has got me wondering if there's a way to "project" a background-less subject onto a non-flat surface, like a ball or corner or something like that.

Thanks all!
Geoff

edit - sorry for the branding; i didn't know how to export only a small section in fcpx, and had to use an online trimmer at work today

Pixel Film Studios Surface Tracker might be worth looking at.
(I'd embed the ST video but I refuse to subject anyone to irritating audio.)

Oh yeah, that's kinda what I'm looking for. I do see that it seems to work better for moving shots, and won;t work well for shots from a tripod, though, which is what I was planning. 

Will give it a think.

gdgross wrote:

…won;t work well for shots from a tripod, though, which is what I was planning.

step 1: record with tripod
step 2: apply effect
step 3: apply 'earthquake' to comp ?

Haha, worth a try!

FYI, for those following this journey, TIL that what I'm trying to do is called "projection mapping"

Take a gander at this but it will cost $50.