Cloning in iMovie

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Level 1

4 points

Cloning in iMovie

Using the latest version of iMovie, how do I clone myself into the same clips? I tried using the green screen setting and became a ghost.

iMovie '11, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Mar 20, 2016 10:58 AM

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Answer 1

GeeD

Level 6

9,179 points

Mar 20, 2016 11:52 AM in response to howard149

I'm not exactly sure what you did (maybe a screen shot would help) but you have to appear in front of a green or blue background and not be wearing anything of the same colour. When you put this above another clip, the green or blue background will be replaced by the contents of that clip. See: http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov82da1338a

for more details.

Geoff.

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Answer 2

howard149 Author

Level 1

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Mar 20, 2016 12:16 PM in response to GeeD

Here is a screen shot. Notice that my hands, face, background, etc, all but my clothing are perfect. You just can't wear green or blue which is an issue...but then again its not Adobe Premiere.

t

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Answer 3

GeeD

Level 6

9,179 points

Mar 20, 2016 12:43 PM in response to howard149

I'm not sure what is happening. Can you post the relevant portion of the timeline, so I can see the both the green/blue screen and background clips?

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Answer 4

howard149 Author

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Mar 20, 2016 4:48 PM in response to GeeD

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Answer 5

GeeD

Level 6

9,179 points

Mar 21, 2016 2:13 AM in response to howard149

The reason is that your upper clip is not you with a green or blue background. In addition to the help file I referenced, have a look at this video:

http://digitalmediacookbook.com/green-screen-effect-in-imovie/

Geoff.

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Answer 6

howard149 Author

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Mar 21, 2016 5:59 AM in response to GeeD

I really appreciate your dialoguing about this topic. This really isn't about using green screen. It about using iMovie's green screen option to put two clips on top of each other and then masking out one side of the clip. Looking closely, you will see the background and my skin color remains perfectly the same when blended. It is only my clothing, which is blue, that got screwed up. I will try two more tests, one wearing green, and one wearing neither blue nor green. That will tell me whether this "trick" will allow either color. I've seen this done perfectly in a friend's iMovie sample so I know it works. I think the lighting also needs to be flatter to avoid shadows, though I can fix that in post. I've used Adobe Premiere which has many more options, but the rental of that software along with the instability of the software put me back to iMovie...for now. Haven't tried Final Cut for years.

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Answer 7

GeeD

Level 6

9,179 points

Mar 21, 2016 7:01 AM in response to howard149

Looking at the timeline I'm very confused. With green/blue screen selected the result would be all of the upper clip appearing except for your blue clothing. which would be replaced by the lower clip content. With split screen selected your clothing in the upper clip would not become transparent.

Neither are consistent with what you show in your second post which seems to be some strange combination of split screen and green/blue screen effects. Have you done multiple exports and re-imports?

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Answer 8

howard149 Author

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4 points

Mar 21, 2016 7:36 AM in response to GeeD

All the green/blue screen selection does is allow you to crop half the clip from the shared clip. The fact that I am having an issue with color is that this technique is imperfect. If I was using a green screen, I wouldn't need to crop out half of one clip. Stay tuned. I will send updates to my work. - HC

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Answer 9

howard149 Author

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Mar 21, 2016 8:15 AM in response to howard149

Here's the latest where I am wearing black. It came at pretty good even though shadows need some work. Next I will try and move further away from the background and see what happens.

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Answer 10

GeeD

Level 6

9,179 points

Mar 22, 2016 3:00 AM in response to howard149

You have achieved an excellent result and yet I don't understand exactly how you did it. (I can imagine doing it using the 'side by side' function or by using the green/blue screen function but you seem to have used some combination of both.) Could explain the steps for my (and maybe other's) benefit?

Many thanks in advance,

Geoff.

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Answer 11

howard149 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 22, 2016 5:04 AM in response to GeeD

You can view the actual clip here: https://www.facebook.com/howard.chud/videos/834787446632890/

If you were to use the side-by-side feature, your would end up with the same two backgrounds. I will send you how I did this once I do a couple of other tests. I do know that wearing blue and/or green doesn't work. I want to move further away from the background to see the effect. On the clip I did, I will be able to lessen the shadows from each clip by using flat lighting, perhaps with umbrellas. What is vital, is to use a tripod and know where you're going to want to split the scene.

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