Removing parts of a person out of a video

[sohrrow]

Hello!

Does anyone know how to remove parts of a person out of a video? For example; someone walking down the road, but all you can see are their hands and feet? Not sure if this falls under rotoscoping, as I don't actually want to transfer the person over to another video, just edit them out.

Any ideas? I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks you!

[Steve Stepoway]

Probably the easiest way is to shoot the background plate without them, then shoot them against a greenscreen. Cover the parts of them you don't want to see with green cloth, so they disappear when keyed. They actually make green body suits for this kind of problem (but they're a bit pricy). Or shoot them against a greenscreen, and paint out frame-by-frame the parts of them you don't want. As time-consuming as this sounds, it would be much easier than shooting them in the environment, and painting them out by replacing (parts of) them with background. That's do-able, but very time consuming.

Good luck.

Steve

[sohrrow]

Thank you very much! I had thought of green screen, but I don't have one available to me. I'm sure I can figure something out.

[Ethlred]

Keep the camera locked down and shoot twice. Once with the person, once without. Zooming would not be a good idea. This is an alternative to shooting the live action on a set which would be VERY hard without really expensive motion control cameras. But an amateur should be able to use a SOLID tripod and not change anything while shooting the two sequences.

Remember you do NOT have to use green if you go with color key instead of hand work. You are not shooting film. Any solid color should do. Film uses green, sometimes blue and Harryhausen sometimes used sodium lighting which is yellow. Those work well with the color layers of the film. In video ANY color can be chosen but some have reflection problems. That is why there was the switch from blue to green. Green works better with human skin. I suspect pure colors help with shadows.

Now, assuming no color key, you have to do that hand work one frame at a time. Erase via replacement with the background plate you shot. Unless you can get the green suit you will have to do hand work. If it is a short scene it shouldn't be to hideously tedious. You can make it easier by using something to create a border on the person to mark what you want left in.

If you already shot the live action the best I can think of is find frames with needed background to to the replacement with. If you don't have any it is cloning time and that may show. Even a background plate is likely to show if wind is messing with things.

Waring danger. I have NEVER done this. I am going on reading many issues of Cinefex magazine. The Predator issue it what is going through my mind at the moment.

Ethelred

[sohrrow]

Thank you so much for this, massive help! Will try them both out and see which one gives the best result!

[MOVIEGEEK]

Ulead VideoStudio(10 and newer) has this feature using overlay and the chroma key, it's easy to use. Shoot the scene twice, mentioned above, once with the static background and once with the person wearing green or blue clothing. Then put the static video in the background and put the person as the overlay and add the chroma key filter.