How to green screen in a forest

[John Brennick]

FWIW, I think the Hobbit movies look amazing. I have been obsessed with watching them lately. It started with all the camera movement, then lighting, then compositing. It is nice that Peter Jackson put up a nice BTS series on youtube, so you can see the tricks. I was really surprised that they needed to add some much red to the actors so they would print as regular skin.

It would be great to see a BTS of the VFX team on that project, but I expect it would just be a litany of cursing.

:-D Thanks Linda!! Thats awesome to hear. The Hobbit film was a tough one to swallow. I think given the circumstance it came out pretty good, but at times it felt more like factory. I've worked at a lot of big shops and by far Weta is the best visual fx company I've ever worked at. So without that team there I dont think The Hobbit films would have been able to be what it was... And ya... At 4am when we were all still there plugging away... You could hear quite a few expletives being said down the row. haha!

Some very, very good information in this thread. I salute all of the hard-working VFX artists who put up with this crap on a daily basis. Your brothers in post share your pain.

haha! The DI guys get their fair share of the brunt of it, that's for sure. Though I almost think they have it worse sometimes... At least we sit in a dark room and only deal with the director when they come to visit for dailies. You guys sit in the room and do 1 on 1's. I tip my hat!

John, thanks for the insight.

Wow, totally forgot that they also released a 3D version... what a pain.

So, if you can comment, why would some of these shots on such a high end franchise (and considering PJ and his team have massive VFX experience) not be shot on a background that would be easier to key ? Is that an oversight, negligence or was this done on purpose as green edges / spill would blend somewhat by default with the foliage of the trees ?

FWIW, I personally thought that the Hobbits trilogy was a better franchise than the LOTR - not a better story, but better executed all around. Did not expect that when I heard initially that they're gonna stretch that tiny book over 9 hours and 3 movies ;-)

Although one thing I'll say as I cannot understand this on a franchise where everything else is of such high quality: there were a few select shots where the animation of the VFX werewolves (whatever the Orks are riding) was absolutely horrible. Like a C64 game. 3 frames animation. Same thing in LOTR when Gandalf and the crew ran through the Dwarf caves/mines in the 2.5D iso shot - but that was 10 years earlier. Never understand how something like that goes through QA/QC when everything else looks so slick...

:-D Thanks for all of the great words Mike!! Thats really appreciated. I can without a doubt say that The Hobbit was the hardest film I've ever worked on and often at times you second guessed the work. It has it's shortcomings as all shows do, but considering the scale... It's baffling how they pulled that off.

As far as the color used for the greenscreen I never really got a straight answer. Though if I remember correctly a lot of the forests had multi colored leaves. It may have been a ratio of how many shots had those green leaves and could just be replaced all together vs how many shots had blue/magenta in them and would be easier with a greenscreen.
Weta truly was a powerhouse shop. I've never seen anything like it. It would get to a point sometimes where we just couldn't get something keyed and they would just kick out a CG tree by the end of lunch. I hate the sound of that because it almost enables the mindset of fix it in post, but thats after countless hours of look deving those assets to get them to hold up at different distances. For times that the keys didnt work and you didnt want to ask lighting for help, we would re-project branches in nuke and soft split them back into the plate.

haha, regarding anim? I don't know about that aspect... The one thing I can say is the deadlines and turnarounds on these films were astronomical.... The work that was being done even a little over a week before it's released is still beyond anything I can say I've ever seen. One thing I'll say is for sure.... When you have that many shots and people are working that many hours, a persons 80th hour is nowhere near as productive as their 27th hour... Now make that the 105th hour and that isnt even a fraction of how productive the 80th hour is. These films turned into a machine... You kick out a shot and pick up another one... That one gets kicked out and you pick up another one. I was only on the second film and then went on to Apes 2 before I decided to come back to the states so I didnt experience the whole franchise like a lot of the others did. Although I have friends and sups over there that were on all of the LOTR and Hobbit movies together and I can definitely say they were pretty burned out by the end.. In general, I think it comes down to ROI.... they usually ask one very important question and thats if the story is conveyed in the shot... If it is, and they're beginning to feel it in the budget, they very quickly begin to overlook some things. These shots get really really expensive and by the time they hit a certain number of versions they start to look to final them to move onto other more pressing shots.

+1 bazillion for these

Tracking bits of hair and painting over bits of background that shouldn't be there, *especially* lights through hair is a favourite.

It's an impossible situation - you can't stifle what a Director wants because it's a bit hard though. Some of the best directors (for those types of vfx movie) are the ones who have been through that side (David Fincher, Wes Ball etc,.) and have an innate understanding of what a shot would mean later on.

On large films there can be quite a hierarchy between Director and Artist as well. Lots of middlemen and women who are not always making things more efficient. I remember sitting in makeshift office back in soho days with a producer, because there was no other room. And it's amazing how efficient things become when you can chat directly and show examples, especially when the director comes in who is used to people previously just saying yep, no problem. I think most directors are pragmatic and if option A and option B is explained the choices are usually the right one. I also feel there is an incredible amount of unnecessary work carried out these days - from sky replacements to digital makeup that just isn't important to a story.

cheers
Paul

God, it sounds like you can relate. I spent more hours in my career painting hair back in and tracking hair back onto cards than I care to think about. When Nuke came out with the camera tracker, it was one of the single biggest and most effective tools they've put into the box. The ability to invert camera tracks on moving object to track hair patches became a regular thing... Definitely started to make life a bit easier when it worked.

I COMPLETELY agree.... you can say no... But then you're the one that said no without a solution.... And someone is going to do it. It's how they conveyed their solution that creates support from above that usually yields the best results. It's how you go about doing it that makes the difference. But you're definitely correct about having that facetime and a relationship with the director/producers. I spent a large portion of my career doing client side comping in house and when you sit down with the director and tell them why something is going to be as difficult as it is, they're generally understanding as to the problem. In my experience the directors have been some of the most understanding when it comes to logistical difficulties... It's just getting them to sit with you to show them where it's not going to work and if it's not going to work, how you can do it differently to make it better and more effective...

 

[Diana Welch]

This BTS video of the Hobbit shows a florescent green screen in the background, yet the foreground has all kinds of greens as well.

Is this easy enough key to pull because the florescent green bg and more less saturated darker hued forest leaves are far enough apart?

I notice all the VFX on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was shot on a blue screen.

So if you want to composite the background with forest/green leaves as foreground elements, you could use the bright green or blue backgrounds?

I used blue screen and I think it works. I got my desired effects on the background.