how to turn a v2 clip into an alpha layer in FCP 5.04?

[www.felliniesque.com]

how do you create an alpha layer from the four characters in the foreground and lay it over a shot of the earth and moon like this in the second layer?

Roto. Unless you shot on green, in which case pull a key.

Roto is easy in Photoshop but the background of this shot is multi-colored. I don't know how to isolate a moving character on a live background.

How do you "pull a key"? I can shoot my foreground character against a green screen. And then how do I turn the foreground shot of the four characters into an alpha layer?

Thanks, Jeff.

just add the chroma key filter.
its easy enough to use
no point going into more detail till you shoot it.

nick

Start here:

[www.amazon.com]

filmman

I do not mean to be harsh here, but you seem lately to be using this forum as a google search engine rather than a FCP troubleshooting forum which it is intended to be. "How to pull a Key" or "How to make a Alpha layer" are in the manual or easily searched in this forum or searched on google.

Please at least do that before posting these types of questions here.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Thanks, Nick. I guess I have to shoot the green screen sequences before I apply the Chroma Key to it.

Thanks, Jeff, for referring me to the book on Amazon. It's very expensive and huge. I read through the first 20 pages and didn't find anything about what my question was about. I'm sure if I read all the book -- it had an 11 page Index, so it must be like the FCP book that Apple gives you with their software: definitions, definitions and definitions. And then after 900 pages, it puts in one sentence what the thing is supposed to do and how it works.

By the time you read how to do the thing, the computer and the operating system has gone through five versions and the software has been updated 25 times and what you were trying to do -- well, you don't even remember what you were trying to do or why you were trying to do it.

I have a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about but it doesn't matter.

And, thanks, Mike. What can I say, when you're right, you're ... and you're right!

How to "pull an alpha key" and "how to make an alpha layer" can be googled. Good old Google. I love it -- now that I have learned how to use it. But with all due respect, Mike, when Google fails there is LAFCPUG

I googled how to pull a key? in Google. Here is the first link:
(they must have paid good money to be listed in first place)

Please don't waste your time to click on it.

[www.coolknobsandpulls.com]

Google: Chroma Key Final Cut Pro.
My article is still the #1 hit there: [www.kenstone.net]

Kevin Monahan
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Thanks, Kevin. It's a long article -- very thorough and good. I read about 70% of it. I'm on my PC, just reading and not taking notes. It's a really involved process, to be sure, but you have it figured out to the last detail. I'm always amazed at this level of expertise. I'm delighted ... and at my age simultaneously discouraged. It's also my personality; I never like the blue screen process when I was shooting primarily 35mm.

I will have to take a course such as yours and read a book such as yours. There is just no way getting around it; "pulling a Chroma Key" isn't meant for the faint of heart, bereft of time and empty of pocket -- pardon the poor style.

> Thanks, Kevin. It's a long article -- very thorough and good. I read about 70% of it.

What's the point of asking for information when you always only read the first 20 pages out of 500, or just 70 per cent? You ask for comprehensive tutorials on the broadest topics possible. Do you even bother to read everything?


www.derekmok.com

Thank you, Derek, for checking in on me. You're one of the most thorough people I know, and you've really picked a great profession, being an editor and all. I think it really pays off to be thorough as an editor -- attention to detail. I've learned so much from you; for example, how to make a widescreen mask that allows adjustments of the 4:3 shot within the 16:9 frame (without getting locked out as when doing a filter effect widescreen.) And many more examples that I read as you advise various people ... especially those who ask the questions specifically -- not like me, because sometimes I go off a tangent ... as in this case, and it's not honestly my intention to do it too

So, I really learned by asking this question how to do an alpha layer. The fact that a green screen makes it possible to do a superb alpha layer was something that I wasn't asking. I'd forgotten or never figured out what exactly an alpha layer is -- now I know; thanks to the patient replies to my original question.

To address your objection to the way this thread has gone, I have to say that I wasn't asking about the Green Screen process in FCP. That's just an issue that crept in.

Jeff got to the point quickly when he replied: Roto. Ok, I know about that from Photoshop; but that is only one still frame, and even then it takes hours sometimes -- not practical for film. That's why I posted the picture in my first post on this thread.

I was hoping that there was a way I could do a traveling matte, alpha layer of a scene with, let's say four characters doing something, and then laying that over a V2 scene; but alas that will mean I have to get into heavy Green Screen work.

And that's where ... out of respect for Kevin (and he deserves respect for his expertise -- otherwise he wouldn't be doing an article for the esteemed Ken Stone ... so I take it seriously when someone like Kevin replies ... and I really appreciate it) ... so out of respect I began reading the article pointed out to me, and then I suddenly realized that by just reading the article it didn't mean I was remembering it all -- just as Nick Meyers understood immediately about me, that in this case, I should just begin to do the Green Screen, but I wasn't planning to do Green Screen at first.

So it's going to take a while before I go into Green Screen ..... In fact, I may not do it. It's not what I should be doing now.

But thanks for trying to help me, Derek. I write all this out of respect for you as well, so you don't think that I ask frivolous questions