I have a few general effects questions for post-production, and one scene that I have yet to film.

The one scene I have yet to film is up above the city, but I'm doing a period film so I want to replace the city with a forested valley. Any idea of how I could do this or what it would take? The location is pretty hard to get to, so keep that in mind.

Also, as far as post-production goes, I have a few small battle scenes. They don't make up very much of my film, so I was wondering if there is any way in post production to create the illusion there are a lot of people when there are not. The camera was not stationary, and it often very shaky to add the battle confusion effect. Any way, even if only for a couple seconds, to create more people or the illusion of? THANKS!

Get yourself a really, REALLY good visual effects artist, because you will not be able to do that individually. Good luck.

matte painting.

and either cloning, or 3d stunt characters...

both are hard, but not impossible to do...
you just have to talk to the right person

so for the overhead shot, you want to replace the city with a valley? couldn't you just film a valley? I guess i don't get why you need to film the city in the first place. Are there parts of the city that you want to stay amdist the trees? As far as adding people to those shots. You could add digital or greenscreened people in BUT because your camera movement is shaky it's gonna be a ***** to track all that movement and insert new people cleanly. You might consider just zooming in on the footage you have, to make it seem more cramped (if that doenst make it to grainy) and shooting a couple establishing shots where there are lots of people in the scene, or dont move the camera alot for those and insert people in post.

Well, the reason I want to replace the valley is because I'm doing a period piece (The Third Warrior) and cities are nonexistant. I could shoot the entire scene from the opposite point of view (with the cliffs in the background), but I think it would be really cool to show how far above the valley the scene is. It would look awesome if I could pull it off, just not sure how to.

The other thing with adding people in is this: I can't shoot any new footage for those scenes. They are summer scenes, and it's pretty much winter here in Utah now.

I've attempted to attach a two photos. One is looking out at the city, and the other is from approximately the same location looking up at the cliffs. My actual shooting location is next to the cliffs, but the shots of the city would be generally the same.

View of valley:


Location from opposite view (circled):

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Einarr,

As far as the fights go, i dunno how you'd make them crowded without digitally inserting people. You could shoot some closeups of swords clashing or something, to try and make it feel cramped, but without a reshoot or complex post production, I got nuthin'. As far as your valley goes, the only ideas i have are:
A) Do what the people beore said and create a matte of a forest in photoshop, then overlay it on your video
B) film a forest from high up, then put that in place of the city in your city shot, you could smooth the edges b/w city and forest with a matte painting or miniature/fake trees.
C) physically find a valley, not covered in snow, and film that. but since you already have your city shot and all you got is snow, that probobly wont work.

Sorry i cant be of more help. Here are a few tutorials on how to use photoshop to make mattes (click the american flag to get english)

Idk if you watched any of the bonus features on any of the lord of the rings movies. BUt they did a lot of matting like that. What they did is, put up a greenscreen where the edge of the hill is seen in the frame. You don't need to fill the whole screen with greenscreen just enough of the edge that you can matte it easy. Then just get some footage of a forest from up high (the same angle or close), and then put the two images in togehter with AE or something similar. Blue screen might be better though cause green and the color of that rock is closer (which isn't good). This will take a lot of work though, good luck whichever way you do it. Can't wait to see you're full movie (I thought the trailor was pretty good).

Thanks for all of the help. I think I'm going to go with a Photoshop matte since I don't have a blue or green screen. Anybody a really good matte artist? It will probably only be 10 seconds of film, but I know that translates to hours of matte work.

I would personally just keep the camera at a low angle if you need to point it back towards the city... pretty cool location. where is this?

If you are going to do mattes, you really should try to get some sort of partial greenscreen erected on site. Otherwise it will be nearly impossible to keep the border "tacked" to the same spot. you can use the motion tracker in AE or Commotion, but the results are slightly less than perfect.

Yeah, it is a great location. It's a few minutes away from Ogden, Utah. I've got a lot of great locations around, and most of them are within twenty minutes.

As far as erecting a partial green-screen, how should I go about that? Should I buy one or make one? And what are the basics of blue/green screen in Final Cut Express? I have no clue how to work FCE.

Blue/greenscreen is mostly done in After FX, from what I know. Here's a tutorial to show you how to do it.

http://www.theforce.net/theater/software/aftereffects/hobson_tutorial/index.shtml

As for buying or making a screen, I don't know about that. However, if one of you knows how to make a (cheap) effective way of how to make one, please let me know as well.

Greets Gotan