Spoofing the old iPod ad, Superbad intro

[boogieted]

I am trying to find a way to use a Green Screen Key to do a spoof of the old iPod commercials from a few years ago, where you see only a solid black silhouette of a person dancing in front of a solid-colored background. (This same effect is used in the opening credits of the 2007 film Superbad.)
I thought the best way to start was to shoot the subject dancing in front of a green screen, and then in PE4 use the Green Screen Key to replace the background.

The problem then, is how to "black-out" the subject who's dancing, so that we only see a solid-black silhouette of them?? I assume maybe I would have to tamper with some image settings, but first I thought I would ask for advice on this. Thanks.

[Bob]

Here's one way. Place your colored background on video track 1, place black video or a black matte on track 2, and place your green screen shot on track 3. Apply your green screen key effect on track 3 to eliminate the green background and isolate the dancer. Apply the track matte effect to track 2 and set the properties to use track 3 and composite using alpha.

[boogieted]

Thanks Bob. You lost me a little on the last sentence, but I am going to give it a try!

[Bob]

After you apply the track matte effect to the clip on track 2, right click on the clip and select show properties. The properties panel will display the settings for the track matte key effect. The first parameter selects which track to use for the matte, set that to track 3. The second parameter tells the effect how to do the composite. You want matte alpha because the green key effect will create transparency where the green was and that's what you want to cut out.

[Chuck Engels]

The Track Matte will give you the shape of one image but the video from another showing through that shape.
The dancer is the shape and then a simple black background would be the video to show through the shape.
Should work great and look really cool, please post the results when you get it done

[boogieted]

Just got a chance to try this, and i'm afraid it isn't working. it does not "black-out" the dancer at all. I have followed the steps word by word.
Is there a step that has been left out here maybe? thanks

[Bob]

Should work. Heres a screen shot of what it looks like on my system.

ipod.jpg

Here's what I did (in order):
1) colored matte on track 1
2) black matte on track 2
3) green green footage on track 3
4) apply key effect to footage on track 3 (I used blue screen key because I had a blue background, you would use green screen key) and adjust. Make sure you have a clean image with no green background.
5) apply track matte effect to track 2 and set matte to video3 and composite using to matte alpha.

I used Premiere Elements 7, but it should work identically in Premiere Elements 4. Track Matte is fussy, after you apply it, don't change the track order of the clips in that segment.

[Steve Grisetti]

Very cool, Bob!

[boogieted]

Thanks Bob. In my classroom we do have one computer with v7 (the rest are v4). We now tried it in v7, and it seems to work well there (except for issues with our green screen lighting--my fault). It was basically a snap in v7, but took some heavy tweaking to work in v4 (and still doesn't work very well). It will be several days before we finish the project, but I'll try to post when we do. Thanks again.

[Bob]

Interesting. I skipped version 4, but I've done the same thing in version 3 and it worked just as well.

Here's a tip. You can apply a garbage matte to the green screen clip prior to applying the green screen key to eliminate much of the background. That will help with uneven lighting and make the keying effect work easier. The garbage matte doesn't have to be tight around the subject and you can keyframe it as necessary to follow the action.

[boogieted]

That is a good idea Bob! I will try that tomorrow. Thanks again.