Jedi Jims Saber Shack
movie trailer discussions Jedi Jims Saber Shack
Ok folks, here he is! Jedi Jim and his Saber Shack...here to serve all your light saber needs. A 2.6 minute commercial is here to explain it all. (A reference to saber crystals is mentioned, for those not in the know, in the SW universe, a certain type of crystal is need to build your saber)
http://users.ev1.net/~dedhorse/jedijim.mov
Now, for the facts:
1) 13.7 megs, Quicktime. Sorry it's so big, but I just didn't want to sacrifice picture quality. If you have a problem getting big files, I suggest you not gripe, and use http://www.getright.com . Getright is made specifically for people on dial up, who have problems getting larger files.
(or http://www.gozilla.com )
2) Though the bluescreen is a little rough on the edges, I think it looks great in the middle of the screen. (Let this be a lesson to you bluescreeners out there...USE PROPER AND EVEN LIGHTING!)On one spot it gets gray pretty badly for a few frames.
3) Sabers are a tad shaky. This is because I did them in Ulead without any dowels. This will be remedied in the special edition.
4) Basically, this was a second test...we thought it would be decent enough to share it with you....hope you like it..or at least tolerate it. We have worked out all the kinks and know what we did wrong. WE had fun with it, and that's really what it's all about....
5) Credits were too short...I know why this is, and was too lazy to fix it...hell, it's just a test!
6) Still working on getting a good balance, compression wise...
Anyway..enjoy, and critique away....
------------------
**AOL IM - EyesRMaced**e-mail - dedhorse@ev1.net
Anyone watch this yet?
Yeah, yeah..I'm anxious!
------------------
**AOL IM - EyesRMaced**e-mail - dedhorse@ev1.net
He he...
It's cool to see a fresh take on something like Star Wars. I like the actor and the text was well written. I didn't see anything wrong with the sabers. It was great overall, except of course for the bad keying. You could a made it a bit better by using a garbage matte, or fixing the background a bit in Photoshop.
Thanks for the kind words, admiral.
Can you tell me more about doing a garbage matte?
------------------
**AOL IM - EyesRMaced**e-mail - dedhorse@ev1.net
Ha ha! That was pretty dang cool. I like the beginning part most of all. The part with the beer bottle was great.
I felt the stealth saber still should have made a noise, but, you know. Oh, the sabers could have been a little quieter. First time around I didn't quite hear all of what he said.Over all, could use some techincal improvement, but a great and funny idea, which is what counts. I look forward to seeing the special edition.
Technically, a garbage matte involves removing a section of a blue-screen clip before applying the keying effect.
In your footage, your problem lies mainly at the edges of the screen, and the worst is in the corners. How you fix it really depends on what software you got.
In Premiere, you could go into the video transparency setting and move the corners of the Sample frame to reduce the active area of your blue screen footage. Of course, this is only good in the shots where your actor doesn't move too much.
In After Effects, you can apply a moving mask to your blue screen footage, with the ADD mask setting. The mask should ROUGHLY surround the actor, and follow his movements. Then apply the keying. This should get rid of almost all of the edge keying artifacts.
You could also fix your footage in Photoshop. Just load the blue screen footage as an FLM, then draw over the bad areas (corners, edges) with blue copied from a good area. This doesn't need to be super precise. It will make the keying more efficient. I've used this technique to remove the wires holding a spaceship model, as well as draw over shadows on the blue screen.
Say, if you don't mind me asking...
How did you do the bottle deal anyway?
And what's the deal with that part where he goes, "light saber snack... shack..."
Was it a little blooper that was left in or was it planned?
Nah..it was planned, but wasn't executed the best it could have been. He was supposed to be looking at the cue card guy after the little mishap
....I'll post about the bottle in a while... I'm at work now..
------------------
**AOL IM - EyesRMaced**e-mail - dedhorse@ev1.net
[This message has been edited by Wade (edited 02-05-2001).]
Cool.
All times are ET (US)