Improvement Tools
Now, here are some improvement tools and training that can make your ability to get good keys and blend them well really come together. I’ve had a chance to play with each of these, and I found them to be very helpful.
Bluescreen Compositing – $45
While the $45 price tag may seem a bit high for a book, John Jackman’s book is one of the few books devoted to Chromakey Compositing and is really quite a good place to get a lot of the basics of chromakeying, from production to post. Check out our review of it in this issue.
Also, check out our two reprinted tutorials from this book in this issue: Ultra CS3 and zMatte.
Website: Click Here
Serious Effects & Compositing: Advanced Techniques for AE 7 – $49
While doubtless soon to be upgraded to a version for After Effects CS3, this is a really impressive training DVD from Andrew Kramer at VideoCopilot.com. Designed and paced for advanced users of After Effects, it is well worth the $50 price tag based on the amazing compositing information stored in this DVD. The main keying plugin shown in this training is the After-Effects-included version of Keylight 1.1 and Kramer shows you how to finesse the program to get far cleaner, refined keys than you normally could achieve. (To read our full review of this training, check it out here.)
Website: http://www.videocopilot.net
dvGarage’s Composite Toolkit - $199
Loaded with bluescreen footage and creative tutorials, this set will let you hone your skills in compositing by providing lots of different scenarios for you to key around. While it’s optimized to work well with dvGarage’s dvMatte Pro, the footage could be used by any keying software and the tutorials could be adapted readily enough.
Demo Downloads: Click Here
KeyCorrect Pro (8-bit & 16-bit processing) – $399
These tools are designed to allow you to overcome problems in DV and other undersampled footage. Using these can be a great way to get some good results from under-sampled footage from easy to use keyers like Keylight, that normally don’t do well with undersampled DV and HDV footage.
Demo Download: Click Here
Hopefully, this shootout has opened your eyes to just a few of the tools that are now available to us as low budget filmmakers in the realm of greenscreen technology. We encourage you to try out the demos to these programs and find out what works best for you!
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The
director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films,
Jeremy Hanke
founded Microfilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make
better films. His first book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) was released by MWP to very favorable reviews. He's curently working on the sci-fi film franchise, World of Depleted through Depleted: Day 419 and the feature film, Depleted. |
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