How to best cut out a character then paste that footage in a different scene?

[GuyWithPie42]

Never tried anything like this so I’m unsure what the best way to approach it. I want to take a character out of a certain clip of a movie (most likely a scene that won’t make it into final cut anyway), then paste them back in a different scene in the movie and try my best to make it blend well with lines around clip and lighting.

Any techniques, tools or software to assist? Thx

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

When you say cut them out, do you mean the whole scene or just the visual of a single person? If you're using the scene still but removing someone from it, you're in for a ton of potential work. You'd need to remove the person by either cropping them out (you'd also probably need to upscale the image to leave the image fidelity), or creating a maskoverlay that rebuilds the background where you removed them from. If you have After Effects, I believe they have a new algorithm and plugin that does this automatically, but it still looks pretty janky unless it's far shots of relatively low movement shots.

Here's an example of what I did to remove the caretakers from TLJ using masking in Vegas.

It's very tedious work.

And another where I painted on individual frames.

 

[GuyWithPie42]

When you say cut them out, do you mean the whole scene or just the visual of a single person? If you're using the scene still but removing someone from it, you're in for a ton of potential work. You'd need to remove the person by either cropping them out (you'd also probably need to upscale the image to leave the image fidelity), or creating a maskoverlay that rebuilds the background where you removed them from. If you have After Effects, I believe they have a new algorithm and plugin that does this automatically, but it still looks pretty janky unless it's far shots of relatively low movement shots.

Here's an example of what I did to remove the caretakers from TLJ using masking in Vegas.

It's very tedious work.

And another where I painted on individual frames.

Firstly you are an absolute madlad. You have more skill technique and patience than I ever will. I am humbled by your greatness.

Secondly, I may ask your permission to steal those clips at some point. (Maybe a year or so down the road when I get that far.) Because that always drove me friggin’ nuts with the vibroblade. And the caretakers only added silliness to the movie.

Thirdly, actually I was talking about the reverse with cutting a character out of a scene then pasting them into a different scene they weren’t in before, which, God-willing, is an easier feat.

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

I can assure you, I just copy what I see others doing. The caretaker removal is just a personal interpretation of what Snooker did for Hal. I'm just obsessive about figuring out how to do things.

I think I understand what you're meaning now though. It is possible to cut out someone, but it honestly might be just as much work. I did something like this with r2 in Heir to the Force. I took a few shots from later in the movie where he's awake and rotoscoped him into some scenes so he wasn't ever asleep. It's very similar to removing a character. At the time I did it using the cookie cutter vfx as I was using movie studio platinum which didn't have masking capabilities. Masking makes it so much easier and is much more efficient. If you post scenes and give descriptions of what you want to remove/add, I'm sure there are community members and editors who can assist in the work flow. There are some pretty accomplished and awesome vfx artists in the community.

 

[tremault]

@DigModiFicaTion so impressive the amount of fine work you're putting in there. I just don't have the patience for frame painting.

With regards to taking a character from one scene into another, the lighting conditions will be totally different. The amount of work to change the lighting conditions on your character is just mind boggling to say the least. You could get a crude effect using light painting if the clip is very brief, if you understand how light behaves, and not much movement... yes it's possible to take it more complex, but of course, the more of a character you show, and the longer the clip and the greater the movement, it multiplies the work you need to do exponentially and requires an insanely good understanding of light and form.
here is an example of a simple bit of lighting I did, but this was mostly static and it was a small section of his face.

this is the light that I painted.

This was asingle light source,his eyes and that light source didn't change relative to his face, so I could simply track this image with his face's movement.


If you don't have any method of matching the light conditions, the person will look incredibly out of place and will break immersion for the viewer.

 

[GuyWithPie42]

@DigModiFicaTion so impressive the amount of fine work you're putting in there. I just don't have the patience for frame painting.

With regards to taking a character from one scene into another, the lighting conditions will be totally different. The amount of work to change the lighting conditions on your character is just mind boggling to say the least. You could get a crude effect using light painting if the clip is very brief, if you understand how light behaves, and not much movement... yes it's possible to take it more complex, but of course, the more of a character you show, and the longer the clip and the greater the movement, it multiplies the work you need to do exponentially and requires an insanely good understanding of light and form.
here is an example of a simple bit of lighting I did, but this was mostly static and it was a small section of his face.
this is the light that I painted.
This was asingle light source,his eyes and that light source didn't change relative to his face, so I could simply track this image with his face's movement.


If you don't have any method of matching the light conditions, the person will look incredibly out of place and will break immersion for the viewer.

Excellent point. Fortunately my first one I want to do this with happens to be a force ghost which the transition from being opaque in original clip to transparent in new will at help with lighting. (I think. Though maybe blue color will also help. Worse comes to worst their ghosts so light won’t affect them too much. )

If the Force ghost goes well I’ll try my hand at a full fledged character, though I suspect that will be SIGNIFICANTLY harder.

 

[tremault]

Excellent point. Fortunately my first one I want to do this with happens to be a force ghost which the transition from being opaque in original clip to transparent in new will at help with lighting. (I think. Though maybe blue color will also help. Worse comes to worst their ghosts so light won’t affect them too much. )

If the Force ghost goes well I’ll try my hand at a full fledged character, though I suspect that will be SIGNIFICANTLY harder.

careful. I don't know your exact choices of shots, but consider that a force ghost will have the background of a scene visible through it. unless the backgroundis black, you're going to have a very hard job filtering that out. you'd need a clean plate of the backdrop to use as a cancellation filter. on the other hand, if the character you're using is not a force ghost in the scene you're pulling them from, then that would make it about a gazillion times easier.

 

[GuyWithPie42]

careful. I don't know your exact choices of shots, but consider that a force ghost will have the background of a scene visible through it. unless the backgroundis black, you're going to have a very hard job filtering that out. you'd need a clean plate of the backdrop to use as a cancellation filter. on the other hand, if the character you're using is not a force ghost in the scene you're pulling them from, then that would make it about a gazillion times easier.

Oh no, I’m not brave enough. I think to transfer a transparent force ghost in another scene would take a professional editor a lot of work to do that.

I want a clip of them while there still alive and “whole” then I’ll give them give them some post death scenes as a transparent force ghost. From that point the goal is to trace them out, turn them blue and give them a low opacity.

If I do good with that, I’ll take it to the next level.

 

[tremault]

Oh no, I’m not brave enough. I think to transfer a transparent force ghost in another scene would take a professional editor a lot of work to do that.

I want a clip of them while there still alive and “whole” then I’ll give them give them some post death scenes as a transparent force ghost. From that point the goal is to trace them out, turn them blue and give them a low opacity.

If I do good with that, I’ll take it to the next level.

ah yes, that should be reasonably straightforward then. In resolve, the tracking features in fusion are able to help with that kind of thing.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Here's an example of what I did to remove the caretakers from TLJ using masking in Vegas.

It's very tedious work.

And another where I painted on individual frames.

Wonderful stuff. Will we ever see a TLJ edit from you btw?

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

Wonderful stuff. Will we ever see a TLJ edit from you btw?

Honestly I don't know. I thought, for all it's warts, TFA was a decent movie, but I just don't connect with TLJ or TRoS at all. If I do ever edit the movie it will most likely be the Infinities route that treats the sequals as a one or two movie what if story. That's a ton of work though and would require me to pull in some amazing vfx artists too to pull it off. don't know if I'd be invested enough in the project to see it through or get that level of commitment from others.