Creating Digital Armies

Greetings fellow Movie Makers! For a looooooong time I have wanted to make a fullscale army. Unfortunately, it is impossible for independent filmmakers to gather resources. Here I will show you how...

Step 1: Shoot Footage

First you need a Blue/Green Screen. There are many Instructables out there that can show you how to make one. First shoot footage of two people fighting. Make sure you get alot of different shots of different fighting. This ensures that the army do all fight like clones. Also shoot a couple of shots of those people as dead bodies (hah!).

Step 2: Import and Layer

Use the Chroma Key tool to remove the blue background. Layer this footage over a background such as a field. You should get something like this...

Now my bluescreen was kinda cruddy so it didn't work very well. However if you darken it a bit and move it into the distance it looks fine.

Step 3: Use Motion Tracking

Use the motion tracking ( or the pan/crop tool ) to place the footage on the background. You should get something like this...

As I said before my bluescreen is kinda cruddy so you should not have any blue or parts of your actors removed.

Step 4: Almost There!

All you have to do now is repeat steps 2-3 and your done. Of course not all Editing Software has unlimited video tracks so you might have to render, add footage, render, add footage, render......
(I hope I made that clear enough)

Step 5: Finished Project

That's it! Just make sure you add the footage of (dead) bodies. Happy Compositing!!

P.s This is my first Instructable so if you wanna rate that would be great

Peace

Comments

[farabide]

A Splendid first instructable.
You got the point accross and it looks like fun to try.
Never thought of 'overdubbing' with video like that - despite the fact i've been doing it with audio for years!
The kids and i are gathering costumes and disguises to try out a crowd scene - (for some reason my two girls weren't keen on making a battle scene! Go figure!)

Thanks again.

[Laperax]

I made a green screen that had the same problem as this, which results from wrinkles I'm guessing.

If you're using Sony Vegas Movie Studio, there's a couple things you can do to fix it.  First try increasing the contrast a little bit, so that the objects in front of the screen don't blend in.  After you apply the Chroma Key, mess with the low and high thresholds until you have removed as much of the blue/green screen as possible.  If not all of it is gone, just keep layering Chroma Keys of different colors.  Use the color picker to choose the colors that haven't been removed yet, like the shadows created by wrinkles.  It's time consuming, but it worked for me.  Also, a well lit room for your screen helps a lot :)

[insomniaSAH]

For the purpose of seeing the actual results of this 'ible, you might want to post a vid clip :p

[Tharl]

Alright when I have time..