Florida Guy

Q: How to make a shadow of a person

Hi, is there a way to take a green screen video of a person and create a shadow. I know how to make a matte version of the video so they are white on a black background, but I would like to make the person totally black and the background transparent. I could then align the shadow behind them and skew it to match the angle of the sun (should be fun). For our office Christmas party I always film some of our folks and put them in commercials. For this one I'm doing a golf commercial and of course the sun is shining and the lack of a shadow is pretty noticeable. Thanks in advance as always for what I'm sure will be some great tips. Thanks, Jay

Posted on Aug 10, 2016 12:00 PM

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Q: How to make a shadow of a person

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  • by Luis Sequeira1,Helpful

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Aug 11, 2016 12:22 PM in response to Florida Guy
    Level 6 (12,092 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 11, 2016 12:22 PM in response to Florida Guy

    This does look like it will be fun.

    Here is how I would approach it, in general terms:

    1) Apply the Keyer effect to the green-screen clip, with NO background, and export with alpha channel - use Master File and choose the ProRes 4444 codec. This will produce a movie with the green background removed and made transparent.

    2) Import the movie you created in step one - let's call this the foreground clip.

    3) Use two copies of the foreground clip above the background clip in the timeline.

    4 Experiment with the blend modes, opacity scale and distortion of the middle clip (the lower copy of the foreground clip) to achieve the desired result.

  • by Tom Wolsky,Helpful

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 11, 2016 12:22 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1
    Level 10 (118,222 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 11, 2016 12:22 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

    Can't use the drop shadow effect for this?

  • by Karsten Schlüter,

    Karsten Schlüter Karsten Schlüter Aug 10, 2016 9:13 PM in response to Florida Guy
    Level 7 (32,703 points)
    Video
    Aug 10, 2016 9:13 PM in response to Florida Guy

    Effects/Drop Shadow, easy like that ...

     

    drophadow_mov.gif

     

    ==edit==

    your reply wasn't there, Tom, when I did mine ... grrr, this boards software ....

  • by Florida Guy,

    Florida Guy Florida Guy Aug 11, 2016 12:24 PM in response to Karsten Schlüter
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 11, 2016 12:24 PM in response to Karsten Schlüter

    Thanks for the info. I'm using the drop shadow for now, but I'm finding it difficult to skew a couple of the shadows (character on the golf course is filmed from high above and the shadows of the trees are almost 90 degrees. I like the first reply of making the separate transparent file and I think I'll try that on the difficult angle shot. Thanks again for all of the great tips.

  • by Karsten Schlüter,

    Karsten Schlüter Karsten Schlüter Aug 11, 2016 9:38 PM in response to Florida Guy
    Level 7 (32,703 points)
    Video
    Aug 11, 2016 9:38 PM in response to Florida Guy

    character on the golf course is filmed from high above

    hmm, tricky one for artificial shadows:

     

    topview.jpg

     

    by no means you can create from a top-view = grey character, just by 'distortion' (that's what a Drop Shadow effect does) the details of a real shadow ....

     

    anyhow, good luck!