rotoscoping + motion graphics / animation advice
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- hardhat
cheeky request... I'm trying to help my other half with some social media video stuff, and recently saw an after effects plugin:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx8P…
thing is, while a clever prick, I have almost zero video / editing skills. i was going to try and find another clever prick on something like fivrr and see if they could whip something up.
essentially i want an "intro" which would be her doing a street interview, then video pauses, some animated shit comes out from behind her (as in example with girl dancing), and a title pops up in front. 5 or so seconds runtime
what skillset would i be after? would one person be able to do all of this? would i be looking for a rotoscoper and an animator? school me, please...
- evilpeacock3
I could do this sort of thing at professional quality in a matter of hours, but you probably couldn't afford to pay my rates if you're even considering Fivrr. And I'm pretty booked-up right now anyway.
I'm a hybrid jack-of-all-trades with video, specifically motion graphics/animation and editing, and having that much to offer has been known to confuse even seasoned producers. So that mix of skills does exist, but it's risky to assume it is commonplace — at least at quality.
So... depending on your source footage quality and the background setting you probably want a rotoscoper first, but a good motion designer can likely do all of that. The graphics won't matter much if you have a janky matte ruining the effects, so some priority on the matte job is probably for-the-best.
- hardhat0
i totally get it. I know what "we" charge for things (though i've pivoted away from digital). and hence the cheeky request. i was just trying to help my other half out without blowing the bank. i'd love a seriously talented person to work with, but you know how it goes... budget. budget. budget.
and totally understand that my ask is top tier and not commonplace. really appreciate your input. and not trying to devalue your trade in any sense.
a big (and serious) thankyou for the guidance
- cherub0
-what skillset would i be after? It sounds to me like you are describing having her be on a front layer. So at least in part, you are describing green screen work but it wasn't shot on greenscreen to begin with (I'm guessing). So yeah.
With the interview, you can transition into the next scene and put some graphics on the side of her, but not necessarily right behind her (I think this requires green screen), and the way I would do that is manually in after effects using what I call "lower thirds" (may not be the correct term)
You build the lower thirds in after effects and put keyframes to say where they start and stop.
-would one person be able to do all of this? Yes.
But that person isn't me. You may want to disregard all of this, and take evilpeacock's advice instead because I don't really do greenscreen work or work with video layers much. I've only done rotoscroping once in college, I still have no idea what it actually is.
- evilpeacock1
I'd add that one can do a super fast-and-cheap "good enough" roto good enough for social media in a few minutes in After Effects if you have a basic understanding of the app.
Tools are that good these days, however no two rotoscope projects are ever alike and even with what we have to work with nowadays wildcards per-project are a thing; If there's lots of hair, motion blur, background noise, low-quality video source, etc. then the scope changes quickly. That's why anyone doing this work should ask to see a sample of the source footage first so they'll know what they're getting into.
Lastly this is only a few seconds, so you don't need to get too fussy because it'll fly by before anyone notices some of the hair is off, etc. I've even done super short but complex roto-ing in Photoshop via an image sequence run through PS's "select subject" using a recorded action.
- robotinc2
my job released a model that will extract mattes automagically
- hardhat1
thanks for all this, guys. super helpful. if i had a bit more time (i'm barely on a computer these days - full time running a wood / metal shop), i'd love to dip my toes into this