In my previous entry I mentioned filming my friends wedding. It wasn't my first wedding video, but was my first one in which I performed all editing on the computer. All of it edited with the same video software I use today - Avid Pinnacle Studio Version 11 Ultimate (hope I put all that in the correct order).
Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate included a very nice bonus - a green screen, or in "industry" terms - chromakey.
I used it when I put together the wedding video. Not in some sort way that had the bride and groom vanishing from the altar - nothing like that. I used it to customize the video to their interests. Well, actually it was more the grooms interest than the bride. You see - he is a Star Wars fanatic. He had stormtroopers and Star Wars memorabilia lining just about every part of his apartment (now their apartment).
So with that in mind I created an introduction to the video that would suit their tastes.
I created a brief story to summarize how they met (in Star Wars way of storytelling of course) and had the text scroll towards a center point on the star-lit screen. Then in that same fashion as the movie, the camera pans down towards Earths horizon. An X-wing fighter zips across the screen from one side to the other. Then the camera shows the Lowe's parking lot (the groom worked there). The same X-wing fighter flies from the sky across towards town. Then a shot of the park where they got married. The X-wing drops from the sky and lands on the street (where presumably the groom emerges from). I didn't have a way to get the groom crawling out of the X-wing - that would have taken more work and would have spoilted the surprise if I had included him. Oh - top it off with the Star Wars theme music and sound effects - that was the cherry on top.
But after all is said and done - the scene wasn't so difficult to create. The green screen and editing software made it all possible.
For the part where the X-wing flighs from one side to the other - that was nothing more than taking a still photo of my sons X-wing toy in front of the green screen. Using Pinnacle Studio I just set the software to pan and zoom the still image across from off of the right side of the screen to off of the left side.
Same goes for the shot where the X-wing flies above the Lowe's parking lot - pan and zoom the still image from off the screen on the left to off the screen on the right.
The trickier part was the X-wing landing on the street. For that I had to video tape the X-wing in front of the green screen. The only movement was that I had the front of the X-wing slightly tilted up (using fishing line) and tried to gently lower the front end down onto the greenscreen covered phonebook that it sat on.
The reason for filming it this way is because the scene is the X-wing descending from up above in front of the camera. And if that is the case then we would be looking at the underside of it. As the X-wing comes into eye-level with the camera we would see the front of it, then finally it is resting on the street in the distance.
Watch my video and you'll be able to see what I came up with. Again - all thanks to green screen.
Star Wars Wedding Video intro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7uXuemr7Sk
No comments:
Post a Comment