Shooting footage
When filming footage for integration you should REALLY try to get your hands on a good quality camera. This will make things a lot easier later in the process and you will end up with a better looking result.
In this case all I could get my hands on was a low-end Cannon handy cam but I'll try to kick as much juice out of it as possible.
Planning
"He who fails to prepare, prepares to fail" - Said a wise proverb I found in a fortune cookie and how right those chinese dudes at the fortune cookie factory are.
As for every project planning is very important and can save you a lot of time and headache. Things to consider in the planning stage are:
- Position of camera
- Need for "clean plate"
- Size of 3D elements
- Movement of 3D elements
- Use of green/blue screen (environment substitution etc.)
- Additional lighting
- HDRI or panorama image to capture reflection and light information
- Size of scene elements
- Camera move
- Tracking points for camera tracking
Since this shot is a still tripod shot we won't have to worry about the last two points but as for the rest we can start our planning. If you have a reasonable camera it is important to note the settings of the focal length and the resolution the footage as this will come in handy later (I assume it will not be shot on film...film is sooo 90s man;)
The rest is pretty straight forward. Set up your shot and watch the actors do their groundbreaking performance but remember to make them aware of the digital elements by dressing up as a monster or building a cardboard spaceship. If you are the one dealing with the additional effects you have to be very clear and aware of how/when/what and where the digital elements will appear.
To gather information about the environment you should always have a digital still camera and a notebook at hand. This can be used to gather accurate environmental shadow and light information but it is also handy for getting precise measures of your scene elements. Some measuring tools are also advisable for accurate..you guessed it...measuring (excuse my lame jokes..it's late). Remember: There is no such thing as too much information!
At the shooting:
camera, measure tape, notebook and pen
Clean Plate
A clean plate is ideally a still frame of your scene used in post production to cover up unwanted elements like wires and shadows. There is however possible (and sometimes even better) to create a clean plate from the footage by "borrowing" areas and cloning over unwanted elements. This method gets around the problem of having to add noise (digital) and grain (film) to the static still frame image.
Panorama image
Jeremy Birn tutorial on how to create panoramas
To obtain the reflection and light information of the scene I placed myself where my integrated object would appear armed with a digital camera. Then I started to take pictures in a spiraling motion to make sure I had the whole environment to stitch together in Photoshop for a full panorama (if you are able to obtain a mirror ball this will help but no such luck for me)
When stiching together the image remember to make the 'seam' face away from the shooting cameras' position so that you won't have to worry about creating a perfect stich and unless you're dealing with some very reflective objects your panorama doesen't have to be perfect.
Here's my final panorama:
Panorama image created from stiched images
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