Taco Bell Commercial - How'd they do that?

Question

Taco Bell Commercial - How'd they do that?

Recently Taco Bell had a commercial for "Grande Fantasy - $1 Grande Burritos" with figures that lean forward (at 12 seconds) to take a bite from a Burrito Grande. The Taco Bell commercial is easily found via a search on YouTube. From other discussions in FCPX, I have learned that this effect began with special shoes patented by Michael Jackson for one of his dance routines. The shoes are called "antigravity shoes", and the look is called something like "the Mean Lean".

I really liked the effect in the commercial and want to include it in my next home movie. (all I make are silly, oddball movies, very definitely not professional).

I don't want to buy a pair of the shoes, which are available online. I wasn't able to achieve the effect in FCPX, so I turned to Motion 5, and I am making great progress!

Obviously the sample I am going to show you needs work. Any suggestions would be immensely appreciated.

Here is a link to what I have so far. It is an 8 second movie.

https://www.dontthinktwice.ws/rotate-02.mov

Thank you....

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Jan 19, 2019 8:15 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

fox_m

Level 6

13,360 points

Jan 19, 2019 10:15 PM in response to Patrick Murphy

Green (or blue) screen your talent would make compositing them in a scene a lot easier. You could also use a Bezier mask and go all the way around for the type of shot you used (use as many points as you need!) Even for a mostly still pose as that, though, you may still have to animate some of the mask's points (which can get very tedious to do).

You don't need to spend a fortune on green screen equipment as you would get from a photo supply company. Some decent green or blue sheets from Walmart will do (or a plastic "tarp" ). You will also need a way to "hang them" (or pin them to a wall). Avoid casting shadows on the screen — they'll be more difficult to key.

[A tarp like this one will do in a pinch: https://www.walmart.com/ip/ALEKO-TR6X8BL-6-x-8-Heavy-Duty-Tarp-Multi-Purpose-All-Weather-Polyethylene-Tarpaulin-Blue/52910408 — you wouldn't want to use it for a real "high quality" key, but it can be made to work].

Further technique:

Take the keyed video and clone it twice. Mask off the feet on one and everything else on the other (turn off the original). Set the anchor point on the cloned (footless) video where the talent's heels would be, then you can animate the angle and still show the feet flat on the ground.

Reply